NBC host Andrea Mitchell asked Clinton's former Secretary of Defense William Cohen how he thinks that Israel will respond to Iran's barrage of ballistic missiles last Tuesday night, and whether he thinks that Israel will "take the enormous step of going after the nuclear program."
Here's what he said:
I believe that the Israelis will take this opportunity and use the chance they have right now to inflict far more serious damage on Iran than ever before. Iran, since the overthrow of the Shah, has been dedicated to Israel's destruction. Hezbollah as well, Hamas as well.
From the Israeli point of view, their existence is on the line [so] I think they will respond rather aggressively. I think they will target silos, missile production facilities, perhaps even chemical weapons production facilities and certainly in my opinion it will go after some of the nuclear capable production facilities that they have. I think they're going to act in a very, very aggressive way and soon and not wait for the end of the holidays. I think that in this particular case, time is not on their side. They need to act quickly if they're going to, because the world community is going to come in and say, "Stop, let's have a peaceful solution."
I think at this point the Israelis don't want a peaceful solution. They want to punish the Iranians and punish them severely."
