IRAN could create a nuclear weapon "in the blink of an eye" and the West must not fear striking its facilities, a former US ambassador warned.
Mark Wallace told The Sun that as the world plunges ever-closer to a global catastrophe - the West “has lost the plot” on reining in the pariah state.
In a sobering assessment, Wallace, a former US ambassador to the UN and CEO of United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), said the world needs to wake up to fact that Iran has its claws dangerously near a nuclear weapon.
“UANI was founded on a first principle - that the number one state sponsor of terrorism, the most egregious and destabilising actor on the world stage could never get a nuclear weapon.
“Because the consequence of that would be too great.
"Iran is hellbent on developing a nuclear weapon and it sees that it's not being checked in any way."
He added: "It could happen in merely a blink of an eye".
Observers have long accused Iran of aggressively growing its uranium stockpile in breach of the 2015 nuclear deal that aimed to curb the Tehran's nuke programme in exchange for a softening international sanctions.
The pact began to unravel when former US President Donald Trumpunilaterally abandoned it in 2018 and reimposed sanctions - and Iran retaliated by ramping up its nefarious activities.
Iran denies that it is trying to create nuclear weapon, but Wallace argued that Iran's nuclear programme has "no other purpose" than the production of a nuke.
And the facts don’t lie.
Only this month, former UN weapons inspector, David Albright, warned that Iran has enough weapons-grade uranium to make six nuclear bombs in one month.
In a report for the Institute for Science and International Security, he said that Iran would "only need about a week" to produce its first nuclear weapon."
His warning came soon after the UN’s nuclear watchdog announced Iran had increased its production rate of highly-enriched uranium up to 60 per cent.
Modern nukes require uranium to be enriched up to 90 per cent - a feat that the International Energy Authority (IAEA) said could happen very quickly.
The discovery was condemned by the US, Britain, France and Germany - but no country made any mention of the consequences Iran would face for the production increase.
But alarms had already been blaring last year when the IAEA found uranium particles enriched by up to 83.7 per cent in Iran’s secret underground nuke site, Fordo.
Former ambassador Wallace warned that the most important thing to know is that “Iran is not interested in a nuclear deal.”
He said: “I am very concerned that policy leaders around the world do not understand the Iranians.
“The assessment of any responsible intelligence community right now is that we have lost the importance and the effectiveness of deterrence because we have no deterrence.
“Every time Iran acts and the United States fails to respond - that is dangerous. Iran will keep pushing back."
Wallace continued: "Whether it be at home or in commerce abroad, we have lost the plot on Iran.
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