Although bringing the Israeli hostages back home from the hell of the Gaza tunnels is a top moral imperative for the Netanyahu-led Israeli coalition government, the ultimate issue occupying the military strategists in the Kiriyah is dealing with the Iranian nuclear threat.
For Israel, there are several key reasons why now is the opportune time to deal with Iran. Primary among those reasons is President Donald J. Trump. And from Trump’s perspective, inasmuch as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has degraded Iran’s major proxies, including the Lebanese Hezb’allah, Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and the demise of the Bashar Assad dictatorship in Syria, it is now easier to employ the military option against the Islamic Republic of Iran. What’s more, Israel destroyed the Iranian air defense systems late last year.
President Trump, however, has his own timetable. He has restored “maximum economic pressure” on Iran, and he sent a formal letter to Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, delivering a clear and decisive ultimatum: Iran has two months to accept a new nuclear deal or face severe consequences. Simultaneously, President Trump has directly blamed Iran for the aggressive actions against international shipping vessels in the Red Sea by the Houthis of Yemen, holding Iran accountable for the Houthis’ actions.
For Israel, the two-months ultimatum is perhaps too long a period, given Iran’s aggressive advances in its quest for a nuclear bomb. According to a Bloomberg Report, Iran has been ramping up production of fissile material in recent years and could likely produce the amount of enriched uranium needed for a bomb “in less than a week.” Iran has enriched uranium at weapons-grade levels of 60 percent purity — something achieved only by atomic-armed nations.
Israel has clearly demonstrated that Iran’s nuclear sites are well within reach of Israeli air power. And U.S. air power is, without doubt, a major force. Such force is unquestionably an option, and one that Prime Minister Netanyahu has said he favors, especially since Israel has the most at stake.
President Trump seems to believe that economic pressure will bring the radical ayatollahs’ regime to its knees. In fact, Iran’s currency, the rial, is in free fall. The impact of U.S. sanctions is being deeply felt in Iran. However, Iran rejected direct nuclear negotiations with the U.S. in its response to Trump’s letter. Moreover, to parade its “toughness,” the Iranian regime’s arm of the Iranian state TV, Press TV–English, sighted American targets in a recently published article, including Camp Thunder Cove on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, alleging that the U.S. is stationing its stealth B-2 bombers to attack the Yemeni Houthis. The outlet implied that the U.S. bombers will be targeted.
The U.S. State Department’s response to President Pezeshkian’s rejection of the U.S. offer to negotiate reiterated, “President Trump has been clear: the United States cannot allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon.” Former president Joe Biden also declared that the U.S. wouldn’t let Iran develop a nuclear weapon, yet he did nothing but appease the ayatollahs. Biden looked the other way as Iran resumed the sale of its oil, which provided it with the revenue that enabled it to fund its proxies.
In the meantime, Israel TV’s Channel 11 reported that Iran has loaded its missiles on underground launchers as a reaction to Trump’s threat.
What must be clear to Israel is that President Trump, who declared early on that he wants to be remembered as the “peace president,” is unlikely to opt for a military option. His threat to Iran is simply meant to force the Islamic Republic to come to the negotiation table. Trump is more than likely to use economic pressure and diplomacy rather than military might. Israel, on the other hand, understands that only military action can put an end to Iran’s nuclear buildup.
Trump is willing to give time to find a lasting diplomatic solution to curb Iran’s nuclear program. Israel, though, doesn’t have the time that the U.S. has. Iran poses an existential threat to Israel. Israel cannot wait while Trump’s “maximum pressure” may or may not bear fruit.
The avoidance of war is commendable in most cases, and that is what the Trump administration is seeking. However, radical ideologies like Iran’s must be dealt with in similar fashion to how the radical Islamist ideology of Hamas and ISIS was fought. Economic measures that leave the ayatollah’s regime in place will not solve the existential threat to Israel, nor will it lessen the danger for America and its allies in the region and beyond. Another nuclear deal struck between the U.S. and Iran, albeit tougher, would just delay the eventual clash between the Islamic Republic and Israel, and eventually with the U.S.
The ultimate goal of U.S. policy regarding Iran must be for regime change. It would serve not only the interests of the people of Israel and the moderate Gulf states, such as the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, but also the oppressed people of Iran. If the ayatollahs’ regime continues to reign in Tehran, it will foment tension and violence that could impact the region as well as the U.S.
Empty threats, such as the one recently used by President Trump toward Hamas that “there will be hell to pay if Hamas doesn’t release the hostages,” don’t advance U.S. credibility. The same is true with regard to Iran. Instead, the Trump administration must work overtly to delegitimize the ayatollahs’ regime, whose support among the Iranian people has steadily declined. Nevertheless, in the end, it will require military action to collapse the regime and eliminate its nuclear threat.
Image: Chickenonline via Pixabay, Pixabay License.
This article was originally published at www.americanthinker.com
