NEW YORK, Sept 21: Gen (retd) John Abizaid has said that Israel is not capable of seriously damaging Iran’s nuclear facilities if it attacks Iran’s nuclear facilities, which leaders of the Jewish state have threatened to do.

Gen Abizaid, who oversaw military operations in the Middle East as head of US Central Command until 18 months ago, made the statement at a Marine Corps University conference last week, Newsweek said in its latest issue.

The magazine said the general’s assessment appeared to echo the thinking of at least some in the upper echelons of the US military.

Gen Abizaid caused a stir here last year by publicly stating the United States could live with a nuclear-armed Iran through a strategy of cold-war-style deterrence.

An Israel-Iran confrontation, he said, would be “bad for the region, bad for the US [and would] ultimately move the region into an even more unstable situation.”

Israel insists Iran might be within a year of crossing the uranium enrichment threshold and has threatened to hit Tehran’s N-facilities.