Israel has the military capability to defeat Iran in a potential conflict, Colonel Richard Kemp has told GB News.
In an exclusive interview, the former British Army commander said “Israel is militarily significantly stronger than Iran” and “has the capability to strike in a big way into” the country using combat aircraft, missiles and special forces on the ground.
Following an attempted Iranian drone and missile attack on Israel over the weekend fears have grown across the Middle East of an escalation in the conflict.
Colonel Kemp said while he did not believe an all out war was likely to occur between Tehran and Jerusalem, Israel will respond to the missile attack.
Hamas began their attacks on Israel on October 7 2023ReutersHe said: “It's not so much a question of defeat [of Iran] as a question of severe retribution for this attack in order to deter Iran from ever doing anything like this again.”
The former British commander, who is currently in Israel, continued: “I think we should also bear in mind that Iran is on the cusp of developing a nuclear weapons capability, which is designed specifically, although not only, but specifically to target Israel.”
“And Israel can't allow that to happen, and it may be that in the course of the retaliation for this attack, Israel is able to destroy… or at least severely disrupt Iran's nuclear weapons capability.”
On Saturday evening more than 300 drones and missiles were fired at Israel by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps from Iran, most of which were intervened by Israeli air defences and its allies including Britain, Jordan and the United States.
Albright said Iran has "quite a nuclear weapons capability"GettyThe attack came following an Israeli strike on Iranian military officials in Syria.
Colonel Kemp said Iran’s attack shows how weak they are after inflicting “virtually no damage whatsoever” on Israel.
While Israel has yet to respond to the missile attack on Saturday, officials in Jerusalem said the country’s five person war cabinet favoured a response, though were divided over the timing and scale of their retaliation.
Meanwhile US President Joe Biden has warned Israel that he will not support a counter-strike against Iran.
Colonel Kemp described Biden’s Presidency as a “a foreign policy disaster and not just in the Middle East, but around the world”.
He continued: “Biden has spent the whole of his presidency since pretty much day one trying to appease Iran, trying to resurrect the deeply flawed disastrous nuclear deal that was put together by Obama.”
The British veteran said that if Donald Trump had been President both Iran and Hamas would not have conducted their recent attacks on Israel.
“It's not necessarily because he has greater diplomatic skills, it's because he is so unpredictable”, Colonel Kemp said.
“It's not necessarily because he has greater diplomatic skills, it's because he is so unpredictable”, Colonel Kemp said.
“No one knows what he's going to do next. And I think that's one very effective means of deterring countries like Iran and Russia, as well as China and other dictatorships, that have effectively got it in for us and our allies.”