Israel lost a perfect opportunity to cripple Iran’s nuclear-weapons program during its strike against Iran this week.
The targets actually selected, air defense and missile-production facilities, were entirely legitimate. Undoubtedly, both Iran’s defensive and offensive capabilities suffered significant damage.
But it was not enough.
Under enormous Biden administration pressure, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government did not strike Iran’s gravest threat: the existential danger of nuclear holocaust against Israel.
And the mullahs’ nuclear aspirations — including the threat of Tehran transferring nuclear devices to international terrorist groups — also pose grave dangers to the United States, Gulf Arab countries and many others.
Yet that threat remains in place.
This mistake should weigh heavily on the consciences of President Biden and his advisers.
Instead, they continue focusing on Gaza, which is merely one front in Iran’s unfolding “Ring of Fire” strategy against the Jewish state. Biden has never understood, let alone addressed, Iran’s strategic threat, not just to Israel but to America, and our interest in keeping Iran from weapons of mass destruction.
Since Hamas’ 2023 attack, however, the White House has focused on the danger’s symptoms not their cause: the ayatollahs’ regime in Tehran.
But after Election Day, Israel will have another chance.
Biden can no longer warn Israel against interfering in US politics by decisively striking Iran’s nuclear targets. Determining the winner may be protracted, but the votes themselves will have been cast.
Of course, Israel won’t be free from vindictive, post-election reprisals by a bitter, lame-duck president. Barack Obama proved that in late 2016, declining to veto a Security Council resolution on Israel’s boundaries. But at least fear of electoral consequences in America will no longer be an obstacle.
Iran, though, will still have a vote. It may also be waiting to take further actions against Israel after Nov. 5.
No one knows who will win or when we’ll know the result. Even the winner’s policies are not obvious.
Kamala Harris is likely to be even less friendly to Israel than Biden, and Donald Trump’s stance is murky. To those who think Trump will support Israel as he did in his first term, I say simply: think again. Trump’s dislike of Netanyahu is palpable, and, constitutionally barred from winning another term, the importance of US electoral politics to Trump will be much less than before. Trump came within an eyelash of meeting with Javad Zarif, Iran’s former foreign minister, in 2019. He could easily do so in a second term, always in search of a deal, any deal he believes makes him look good.
In any event, the decision is ultimately Israel’s. Having failed to act against Iran’s nuclear-weapons activities before Nov. 5, it must decide whether to act thereafter.
Some observers believe Israel should attack Iran’s oil-and-gas infrastructure, which is highly vulnerable. Devastating Iran’s Kharg Island export facilities, for example, could deprive Iran of almost all its international earnings. So doing would dramatically affect the domestic economy but might also turn Iran’s population, increasingly opposed to the mullahs’ regime, back toward more sympathy for its oppressors.
And Gulf Arab states have warned, with considerable justification, that if Iran’s facilities were damaged, Tehran would likely retaliate against their oil infrastructure. This mutual assured destruction of hydrocarbon exports is obviously something the Gulf Arabs wish to avoid.
Of course, striking Iran’s nuclear program would have no economic harms globally. And there would not be little blowback from Iranian public opinion.
Indeed, eliminating the regime’s long-standing program to acquire nuclear weapons could be a conclusive blow against its credibility inside Iran. The ayatollahs have spent uncounted billions for nuclear and conventional warfare capabilities but were shown by Israel’s attack to be utterly inadequate. Loss of the nuclear program could expose the mullahs to even more internal dissent, threatening the regime itself.
Israel bent its knee to Biden’s pressure after Iran’s April missile-and-drone strikes. For its reward, Israel was subjected in October to Iran’s second attack.
While Jerusalem then retaliated forcefully, it was not enough.
Remember this after Nov. 5, because Israel will have to live with it: Iran’s third try could be nuclear.
John Bolton was national security adviser to President Donald Trump, 2018-19, and US ambassador to the United Nations, 2005-06.
