Israel and the US should be more concerned about an imminently nuclear Iran

The past nine and a half months have witnessed unrelenting attacks on Israel from multiple fronts. This series of assaults began with October 7th, and, in an unprecedented move, culminated, on April 14th, in the Islamic Republic of Iran launching 300 rockets and UAV’s towards Israel.

Since October 2023, Hezbollah has fired over 6,000 rockets and missiles at Israel, including one that recently massacred 12 children in Majdal Shams. Don’t forget either, the Houthi drone that murdered a civilian in Tel Aviv, and the Houthi strategy to try and disrupt trade to Israel through the Red Sea. I don’t think I have to remind you what Hamas has done to Israel over the past year.

But, ultimately, Israel’s general strategy, not just since October but over the past few decades, has failed to yield success. Focusing on Iran’s proxies, but not wanting to tackle the real problem, Iran doesn’t work.

We’ve seen this over the past nine months; focusing nearly all of Israel’s attention on defeating Hamas, which does undeniably need to take place, but without focusing much attention on Iran, has only emboldened Iran and its other proxies.

Currently, Israel is on course, and possibly only a few days away, from an all-out war with Hezbollah, if not Iran itself, following Israel’s assassination of the political leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran, with a NYT report saying that the Ayatollah wants to directly strike Israel in response.

That’s without taking into account the fact that Blinken slipped into one of his interviews, very casually I might add, that Iran “is now probably one or two weeks” away from developing enough weapons grade material to create a nuclear weapon, a weapon that Iran has made no secret of its intention to strike Israel with.

But this isn’t just a failure in Israel’s strategy. The US, particularly under Obama and Biden has failed miserably to curtail the power and trajectory of Iran.

Obama’s faith in diplomacy with Iran did little to stop Iran in the long term, although it may have temporarily delayed its nuclear weapons programme. However, in retrospect, and even during his presidency, it’s clear that Obama should have been more forceful with Iran, one of the world’s foremost totalitarian powers.

Equally, whilst Biden’s strategy of perpetual de-escalation in the Middle East over the past nine months has succeeded in delaying an inevitable conflict, his unwillingness to directly confront Iran over its nuclear weapon program since Trump tore up the Iran Nuclear Deal, has been disastrous. It should also be said that it was undeniably a mistake by Trump to tear it up without providing a long-term alternative solution, even if the Nuclear Deal did have many shortcomings, not least its sunset clause and failure to address Iran’s use of ballistic missiles and relationships with its proxies.

However, as we know from Israel striking Syria to stop its nuclear program, the only way to stop a Middle Eastern dictator from acquiring nuclear capabilities is direct confrontation.

Israel and the United States, as well as the entire western world, should be a lot more worried than they are about Iran going nuclear.

When Iran makes a threat about wanting to destroy Israel or America, it means it. If there’s one long term lesson we should take away from the past nine months, it’s that we should take Iranian aggression seriously and respond appropriately in a way that will yield results, and not just a short term illusion of calm.