Iran’s parliament security and foreign policy committee has approved a bill to strengthen the armed forces against Israel, mandating billions in funding from oil revenues, frozen foreign assets and air transit fees, its spokesperson said on Sunday.
Speaking to Channel 12, Cohen said: “I always wanted to be proactive, identify threats, neutralize them. But the prevailing approach was avoidance—‘Oh, what will happen next?’ For example, I had a full plan to eliminate Qassem Soleimani in Syria. Everything was ready—intelligence, surveillance, logistics—but I was told I couldn’t carry it out because it would spark a war with Iran.”
During the interview, aired Saturday evening, he recalled then US President Donald Trump accusing Netanyahu of cowardice for backing out of the strike.
Cohen said Israeli reluctance “wasn’t because of the prime minister -- but because [Netanyahu] accepted the army and military intelligence’s position,” referring to then chief of staff Aviv Kohavi.
He recalled a security meeting in which he proposed that the IDF strike a site linked to Qassem Soleimani that the military had itself labeled a serious strategic threat, without giving a date. “The chief of staff opposed me, right there,” he said. “I told the prime minister: ‘Instruct him.’ But no directive was given.”
Cohen said Netanyahu sided with the generals, a stance he described as a “policy of consequences.”
Asked if the generals intimidated the premier, he said: “Absolutely.”
On June 13, Israel launched surprise attacks on Iran, killing many senior military leaders and nuclear experts, and triggering a 12-day war that brought destruction to both sides.
After Cohen’s remarks were aired Saturday evening, Kohavi issued a statement saying the IDF had opposed a different operation proposed by Cohen to kill Soleimani, and had backed what proved to be a successful operation.
Asked if Netanyahu might have acted differently in another environment, Cohen replied: “Yes, absolutely.”
Under Cohen's tenure, from 2016-2021, Operation House of Cards saw Israel target dozens of Iranian targets in Syria in 2018.
During his Saturday interview, Cohen said one of his major successes was acquiring Iran’s nuclear archive.
He said he devised the “exploding beepers” tactic used against Hezbollah last year, when pagers and walkie-talkies belonging to the Iran-backed group were rigged to detonate simultaneously, killing and wounding hundreds of its fighters across Lebanon.
“I’m the father of the concept," the long-time agent said. "In 2004, I told then-Mossad chief Meir Dagan I wanted a special operations center that would also handle equipment sales.”
Haghshenas said restoring the wetland requires $300 million and called for measures to stop industrial, agricultural and household wastewater from flowing into it.
He warned that decades of untreated sewage, sediment and pollution, compounded by falling Caspian water levels, have left the wetland on the brink of ecological collapse.
The wetland, registered under the international Ramsar Convention in 1975, is a critical habitat for fish, birds and local livelihoods.
Environmental officials said invasive plants, shrinking water flow and mismanagement have deepened the crisis, but stressed that “Anzali is not dead and can recover” if pollution is curbed and water retained.
In August, a senior Iranian environment official warned that Lake Urmia in northwestern Iran, once the Middle East’s largest, will completely dry up by the end of summer if current conditions persist.
“The lake's water level on August 1, 2025, was 1,269.74 meters, its area had shrunk to 581 square kilometers, and its volume was down to about half a billion cubic meters,” said Ahmadreza Lahijanzadeh, deputy for marine and wetland affairs at Iran’s Department of Environment.
Ebrahim Rezaei saidthe committee unanimously passed the draft titled “Strengthening the Armed Forces to Confront Crimes and Aggressions of the Zionist Regime.” The plan consists of one article and six clauses and was developed after expert reviews in the defense subcommittee.
According to Rezaei, the first clause obliges the Planning and Budget Organization and the Oil Ministry to fully disburse the defense allocations for the current budget year and the remaining unpaid portion of the 2024 defense budget.
The second clause requires the Planning and Budget Organization to provide the full annual share of resources for defense projects approved by the Supreme National Security Council, financed through savings in public expenditure or the transfer of oil revenues.
The third clause directs the Central Bank to make available up to €2 billion from blocked assets or other overseas currency holdings as zero-interest loans, guaranteed by the Planning and Budget Organization, or from the National Development Fund with the authorization of the Supreme Leader, to support emergency defense projects by the General Staff of the Armed Forces.
Rezaei added that the fourth clause requires the Planning and Budget Organization, in cooperation with the Central Bank and the Ministry of Economy, to provide another €2 billion for foreign purchases of major defense equipment, coordinated with the General Staff.
The fifth clause allows the Organization and the Oil Ministry to allocate$1.5 billion in oil to the armed forces.
The sixth clause stipulates that 30% of annual revenue from the use of Iran’s air corridors and air transit fees will be dedicated to strengthening the army’s air defense systems.
Rezaei said the committee’s approval “can address major concerns about strengthening the defense capacity of the armed forces” and would bring improvements in equipment, resources and the livelihood of military personnel. The draft will now go to the full parliament for debate in upcoming sessions.
Iran's government spokesperson announced a 200% increase in the military budget in October 2024, saying that the purpose of the move was to "strengthen the country's defense capabilities."
The budget for Iran’s armed forces was 7,220 trillion rials in last year’s budget bill. Given the exchange rate defined in that budget (330,000 rials per dollar), Iran’s military budget last year could be estimated at $15.7 billion.
Based on this, the allocated budget for Iran’s armed forces in the coming year could be estimated at $46 billion.
