“Former US defence chief says he rejected Netanyahu’s Iran assessment Former US defence secretary and CIA director Robert Gates recalled a 2009 conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in which Netanyahu argued that Iran would quickly collapse if attacked militarily. Speaking on Face the Nation, Gates said Netanyahu told him the Iranian government would “crumble at the first attack”. Gates said he rejected the argument, telling Netanyahu he was “dead wrong” and underestimated “the resilience of the Iranians”. He also said Israeli strikes on Iraq’s Osirak reactor in 1981 and a Syrian nuclear facility in 2007 may have contributed to what he described as an “unrealistic position” on how Iran would respond to military action.
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