Iran "may change its nuclear strategy if Israel attacks nuclear facilities"

While Israel has warned of retaliation for Iran's ballistic missile attacks, Iran could modify its nuclear strategy if Israel's retaliation heads to its nuclear facilities.

"Attacks on nuclear facilities can certainly affect calculations during and after war," Brigadier General Rasul Sanaei-Rad, a political adviser to Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, told Fars, a semi-official news agency run by the Revolutionary Guards, according to the Financial Times (FT) on the 10th local time.

"Some politicians have already raised the possibility of a change in (Iran's) nuclear strategy policy," he said, warning that Israel's strike on Iran's nuclear facilities is an act that crosses the red line both locally and globally.

"Nuclear facilities have protocols that both parties should consider even during the war, and Iran's potential response will undoubtedly be reflected and affected by them," he added.

After Iran fired about 200 ballistic missiles into Israel on January 1 in retaliation for the assassination of Lebanese militant Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah, some Israeli right-wingers have argued that Iran's nuclear program should be targeted in retaliation.

But Western officials, including the U.S., have warned it would be the most extreme retaliation, and U.S. President Joe Biden and others have advised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to target nuclear facilities or oil infrastructure.

In the meantime, military experts have predicted that Israel will not be able to successfully strike Iran's nuclear facilities deep underground without U.S. support.

However, Israel already hit and damaged an air defense system defending Iran's central Natanz nuclear facility in April in response to Iran's first-ever mainland attack.

Israel's Defense Minister Yoav Galant recently warned that Israel's response would be "deadly, accurate and above all surprising" and that "they will not understand what happened or how it happened."

As a result, Iran and the rest of the world are paying close attention to the targets and intensity of Israeli retaliation attacks, and they are concerned about a huge impact if Israel's attacks target nuclear facilities.