Head of the US Defense Intelligence Agency said the Zionist entity has not yet decided to carry out a pre-emptive military strike against Iran’s nuclear program and Tehran appears reluctant to provoke a conflict

Head of the US Defense Intelligence Agency said the Zionist entity has not yet decided to carry out a pre-emptive military strike against Iran's nuclear program and Tehran appears reluctant to provoke a conflict.

“To the best of our knowledge, Israel has not decided to attack Iran,” General Ronald Burgess told the Senate Armed Services Committee Thursday.

Iran was working to bolster its naval and ballistic missile capabilities, could launch missile attacks against the West if attacked, "temporarily" shut the strategic Strait of Hormuz and could deploy "terrorist surrogates" abroad in the case of a war, Burgess said.

"However, the agency assesses Iran is unlikely to initiate or intentionally provoke a conflict," he added.

In the same context, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said Iranian leaders have yet to take a decision to build a nuclear weapon but are expanding the country's technical capacity in the meantime.

"We believe the decision would be made by the supreme leader himself and he would base that on a cost-benefit analysis," Clapper said.

He said that Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei likely did not want a nuclear weapon "at any price" and that demonstrated "the value of sanctions" imposed by the United States and other countries against Tehran.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday said sanctions against Tehran "haven't worked" at the time Iran announced it had installed another 3,000 centrifuges to increase its uranium enrichment abilities while stepping up exploration and processing of uranium yellowcake.