Iran, Israel, US & the Nuclear Option

While world attention is fixated on the war in Gaza, Iran’s ruling mullahs have seized the opportunity to advance their nuclear program, leveraging the conflict to divert attention from their nuclear ambitions.

This calculated move not only serves Iran’s immediate interest of destabilizing the region and harming its adversaries – the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Bahrain, but is directed most specifically at the United States. Iran would like to see the U.S. out of the region altogether, so it could have the Middle East all to itself. The Gaza war, is a diversion, that aligns with Iran’s goal of completing its nuclear ambition and eradicating Israel.

We can see Iran’s militancy spreading throughout the Middle East. The U.S. and its allies are engaged in a conflict with Iran’s proxies, making the need to confront Iran’s sinister influence and aggression increasingly clear. Iran is both the enemy of a new Middle East, as well as being responsible for shaping all new alliances. The time has come to defeat this hydra-like empire and curb its destructive influence over the future of the world at large.

The 300 missiles and drones which Iran recently catapulted over Israel, should change the world’s attitude about what to do next. Many strategists believe that steps must be taken to stop Iran’s imperialistic aspirations at all costs.

President Biden’s attempts at lowering the fire on this conflict was simply repeating the same disastrous strategy of appeasement employed by his former boss, Obama, whose failure to enforce his ‘Red-Line’ brought Russia back to the Middle East with new emboldened aggression. Similarly, doing nothing only emboldens the aggressor! It’s been proven time and again that trying to appease a belligerent actor in an attempt to avoid a larger conflict, helps bring on the very escalation one is  trying to avoid (see Donald Kagan’s book ‘On the Origins of War: And the Preservation of Peace’), which seems to aptly describe the Obama-Biden Iran appeasement policy.

What should trouble the West the most is the expansion of Iran’s alliances with Russia, North Korea and China in an effort to counter the West by unsettling the balance of power around the world. Iran’s ambitions are global and if we’ve learned anything from the past century it is that when dictators threaten, they make good on their threats! Even if we consider their goals to be ridiculous, we should take them seriously and act to swiftly defeat them.

Sitting on the sidelines diminishes our position. With advances in missile technology, Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons could be its crowning achievement and render it untouchable. Iran’s ayatollahs see themselves as messengers of Gd and have no reservations about pursuing a suicidal strategy of mass genocide. The threat derives as much from Iran’s potential use of such weapons directly as well as from their pattern of sending rogue militias to use them while claiming deniability.

Fortunately, as of late, a new alliance has taken shape between the Saudis, some of the Emirates and other Sunni actors, who look to Israel to lead in being the ‘foot soldier’ in this battle. And if we are to learn anything from the recent April 13^th Iran missile attack, it is the strength of this alliance in exercising a united front to confront Iran beyond political lip service.

In an interview with Israeli public broadcaster KanNews earlier in April, a source in the Saudi royal family accused Iran of instigating the conflict in Gaza to undermine progress towards reaching a normalization agreement between Riyadh and Jerusalem.

“Iran is a nation that endorses terrorism, and the world should have curtailed it much earlier,” the Saudi royal said.

The Middle East is in the midst of trying to reorganize itself. Many of its members desperately want to join the modern world but fear Iran’s military threat. Without taking immediate action, there’s no recourse to Iran’s growing dominance. It is in the interest of the West to help the Middle East detach itself from its past and lift the threat of repeated regional wars that impact the world at large.

Israel’s policy has led the struggle against Iran’s nuclear program, only to be reversed by the Biden administration. This strategy has failed. The IAEA reported that Iran is merely a few weeks away from obtaining nuclear capability, which will make it untouchable while it continues to attack Israel through Hamas and Hezbollah, and to holds Western naval traffic hostage by the Houthi rebels in Yemen, as well as attacking the U.S. through its militias in Iraq.

Israel has been trying to harness U.S. support in trying to stop Iran’s nuclear pursuit and expansion strategy. But the upcoming U.S. election together with its larger internal political paralysis, renders it incapable of confronting Iran’s game. Despite all evidence to the contrary, the old Obama-Biden guard is still hoping to moderate Iran. We must stop this dangerous game and not be satisfied with engaging Iran’s shadow proxies (Houthis, Hezbollah and the likes), but rather direct our fight against the very head of the Hydra.

As I write these lines, Israel has retaliated against Iran’s missile attack. But regardless of the day-to-day fighting, the solution now is to act decisively before Iran attains its nuclear aspirations. To do so the U.S. must draw deeper into the fight, overcoming its isolationist ideology. Israel cannot confront Iran by itself and in order to bring the U.S. into a more active role, we must devise a strategy.

In as much as it sounds ominous, the only way to draw America into a more serious engagement, is by having Israel threaten a nuclear strike against Iran. Although the U.S. would not allow it, Israel could easily propose this as a last resort in defending itself from Iranian annihilation. Iran has been threatening to destroy Israel, and while Israel has done all it can to counter these threats, the situation with Iran is reaching a point where Israel may not have another option but to attack Iran directly in order to avert such a threat (always remembering to take seriously what its enemy says).

Similar to the situation when PM Begin ordered the attack on the Osirak Nuclear Facility in 1981 Iraq, Israel can attack Iran with conventional weapons, but it would require a coordinated American-Israeli unified front. If the U.S. resists, it must understand that Israel cannot sit around and wait. America’s lead in containing Iran is crucial and justifies using all the tools required to help it decide to join this cause. The U.S. led the attack on Iraq when it suspected Weapons of Mass Destruction. This time the threat is real and America should  come out from behind its isolationist shell and lead the alliance again. The Western alliance, joined by several Arab nations, could stop a critical and dangerous Axis of Evil that bridges South Asia and Russia in their attempt to destabilize the world.

Iran’s leadership is despised by the majority of its people and our goal should be nothing short of regime change. This will free its people, help reshape and modernize the Middle East, protect the world from future nuclear war and demonstrate to China and Putin the power of Western unity in the face of aggression. It’s rare to find that one act can help accomplish so many essential goals. We naturally fear strong military action but sometimes it takes a bold move to change the future. If Britain had done so in 1936, we would have avoided the devastati