It has been a long time coming. Israel launched preemptive attacks against Iran on Thursday afternoon, which would have been in the middle of the night in Tehran. The AP reports that the strikes hit both military and nuclear facilities and may have killed both top Revolutionary Guard officials and nuclear scientists. As I write this, another wave is reportedly underway.
It was just a matter of time before either the US or Israel hit Iran. I’m old enough to remember thinking that George W. Bush would probably attack before leaving office, especially with Barack Obama taking his place, but apparently Iraq filled his plate.
That isn’t to say nothing was done. In 2014, a cyber attack on Iran’s nuclear program with the Stuxnet virus was believed to be the work of the US and Israel. The attack probably delayed development of a nuclear weapon by several years.
Both countries strongly oppose an Iranian bomb. Iran’s fingerprints are all over the Hamas’s October 6 attacks on Israel, and a proposed Israeli-Saudi peace deal was a motive. Iran launched a massive wave of cruise missiles against Israel in 2024, but was thwarted by a coordinated defense that included Israel and the US. There is little doubt that if the Iranians develop a nuclear weapon, they will use it.
An obvious question is why Israel would choose now to attack. The Trump Administration has been negotiating a new nuclear deal with Iran, and Israel has its hands full with Gaza. Part of the answer may be that talks were failing and Iran’s proxies have been weakened by the Gaza war.
There is likely to be a strong retaliation from Iran. That retaliation could come in the form of cruise missile and drone attacks, conventional attacks by Iran’s allies on Israel’s borders, and terrorist attacks.
The retaliation might be focused on the US as well. US military bases in the Middle East could be targeted. Back in 2020, Iran launched a cruise missile attack on a US airbase in Iraq to retaliate for the killing of a top Revolutionary Guards general. US embassies and soft targets could also be the focus of retaliation.
We won’t know how successful the Israeli strikes are for some time. We also won’t know immediately whether the initial strikes devolve into a larger war.
The fact that the two countries are a long way from each other is a good argument for a limited war. It would simply be too difficult for either side to launch a ground war, although we might see raids and missile launches by Hezbollah and Hamas (if there is enough left of Hamas to launch a raid).
In closing, let’s look back to 1981. On June 7 of that year, Israel launched a similar strike against another nuclear facility called Osirak. The attack destroyed a reactor that was about to go on line in another hostile country. Ten years later, the dictator of that country invaded neighboring Kuwait, kicking of two decades of conflict with the United States.
Israel took a lot of criticism for the Osirak strike on Iraq, but most of us would probably agree that it’s a good thing that Saddam Hussein never got nuclear weapons. The argument to keep them out of Iranian hands is much stronger.
I have serious problems with a lot of things that Israel has done, particularly when it comes to the Gaza war, but the bottom line is that an Iranian nuclear weapon is an existential threat to them along with being a serious threat to us.
For a long time, it has been obvious that there were no good options when it came to preventing Iran from obtaining that weapon. Thursday’s attacks were probably the least worst option.
This is a result of Trump cancelling the Iran deal. We’d stopped their nuclear program. But the deal didn’t have his name on it so it had to go.
If you believe that deal stopped Iran’s nuclear weapons program, I have a bridge to sell you…
The deal established both maximum levels of allowable enriched material and a very comprehensive monitoring regime which, despite their endless wailing and conspiracy mongering, the hawks were never able to demonstrate a hole in. So weak was their hand for critiques that they ended up resorting to complaining about how the deal allowed Iran to use money to stir up trouble in their neighborhood or expand their missile development- both true, both irrelevant since the deals purpose was to put a lid on Irans nuclear capabilities alone and nothing else.
When Trump pulled out of the JPOC he claimed that a new wave of sanctions would swiftly bring Iran back to the table. Obviously that failed completely.
You are right nothing was proven. That is because Iran would not let inspectors in. I wonder why?
Because they are a sovereign nation? Because they have an honor based culture? Any one of dozens of non-nefarious reasons?
They have spent decades showcasing that we should assume nefarious reasons as the default.
People said the same thing about WMDs in Iraq before we invaded, only to find out the UN weapons inspectors were right that Sadam had no active useable WMDs. The same sort of people if not the same actual people are now saying this about Iran. Color me deeply skeptical.
The same sort of people…
This time the people claiming there are serious current problems are the inspectors, specifically the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
That’s supposedly a neutral third body.
Problems with the deal:
1) Sunset clauses.
After 10-15 years the restrictions come off. So at the end of that time we’re supposed to believe that Iran has become a normal country and could be trusted. At end of the deal they’d be weeks away from getting a bomb and it would take us months to put the sanctions back on.
2) Limited Inspection Regime:
The deal doesn’t give “anytime, anywhere” inspections.
3) Lack of Enforcement.
So we pay them $150 Billion and they pretend to not be interested in nuclear weapons for 10 years while they use that money to get better at their “civilian” nuclear program that looks and acts like a military program. They also get better at putting their eventual nukes on missiles and fund terrorism.
I’d challenge there being an entire thesis that your argument relies on implicitly treated as a bare fact in a throw away line.
There are many reasons to doubt that Iran will use a nuclear weapon if they had one. Principally the basic premise of realism, that the government values it’s own survival highly.
If you want to rely on your that premise, at the very least it needs to be supported and preferably some engagement with obvious counterarguments.
Brent: Your first line is very hard to parse. I have no idea what “Throw away line” you are referring to. In any case: Of course there are reasons to doubt that Iran might use a nuke. There are also reasons for its most likely target to suspect that it might, including repeated attacks by its surrogates and constant rhetoric promising her destruction. No one can compute the probability of an Iranian nuclear attack, but it’s high enough not to stake your life on it not happening.
“There is little doubt that if the Iranians develop a nuclear weapon, they will use it.”
This is the line. It’s completely unsupported and I’d say unsupportable, but it’s the justification for action.
You’re saying something different here, that the odds are difficult to determine.
The author states that it is a certainty, or such a near certainity that the difference between it and certainty makes very difference. That’s an incredibly strong claim to just toss off as a given.
Certainity of a nuclear weapon being used justifies all kinds of actions, morally, legally and strategically that aren’t justified by a mere possibility.
In particular, it’s relevant to the norms of state behaviour. We expect pretty much every state on earth to tolerate the possibility that other states will use nuclear weapons on them. Israel has a robust nuclear deterrent of their own which puts them in a more favourable position than the norm for modern states. We don’t consider that possibility as legitimate causus belli.
It’s arguably a different situation if their use against you is a practical certainty and that’s what the Author states was the case and relied upon to make his arguments. I have problems with that.