Tatters, Is It Time to Strike Iran’s Nuclear Program?

By Hugh Fitzgerald | Dec 20, 2024

Iran is now more vulnerable to attack than at any time since the founding of the Islamic Republic in 1979. On October 26, the Israel Air Force struck Iran, destroying its ballistic missile plants and all of its missile defense systems, including the Russian S-300 batteries that protected Tehran. The Iranians as a result are now nearly defenseless against attacks from the air, either by Israeli missiles or by its bombers. The Iranians have promised that in response to that attack, they will “crush” the Zionists, but nearly two months have gone by, and they have done nothing, not even launching a single drone toward the Jewish state. They know perfectly well that if they did launch such a attack, no matter how ineffectual such an effort might be, it would provide Israel with the excuse to let loose with a massive attack on Iran’s nuclear program.

Now Iran has been stripped of the deterrence that Hezbollah once provided, by threatening to attack, with its vast arsenal of 150,000 rockets and missiles, all of northern Israel, should the Jewish state attempt an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. But in addition to destroying Hamas, the IDF has managed in the last few months to weaken Hezbollah to such an extent that it could not provide any assistance to the Assad regime when the rebels of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham suddenly erupted out of Idlib to conquer the country within a week.

In just a few months, the IDF has managed to kill Hezbollah’s leader, Hasan Nasrallah, and his successor Hashem Safieddine. It has killed 10 of the 12 members of Hezbollah’s Jihad Council. It has destroyed massive amounts of weaponry and confiscated 155,000 weapons. Hezbollah’s arsenal of rockets has been reduced by 80%. Israel has long been preparing for an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Now Hamas and Hezbollah have nearly been destroyed as military threats, and Iran’s former close ally Syria has overnight become its arch-enemy, because the rebels now in power in Damascus cannot forgive Tehran for supporting the hated Bashar al-Assad. In Iran, the regime is racing pell-mell to acquire enough enriched uranium to make several bombs. Rafael Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, has said that Iran has “dramatically” increased its enrichment of uranium up to 60% purity, which is just one step below weapons-grade. Israel can’t wait much longer. So Israeli pilots, the most experienced and best trained military pilots in the world, are quietly preparing for what will be the most important mission of their lives.

Here are two takes on that possible strike:

The first discusses how the IAF’s more than 600 airstrikes that have destroyed Syria’s military have also paved the way for an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities: “Israel paves way for strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities after taking out Assad’s army,” by Jotam Confino, Telegraph, December 14, 2024:

Israel’s air force and navy are estimated to have destroyed around 80% of the Syrian army’s equipment since Islamist rebels seized Damascus last Sunday, including air defense systems that may have been used to protect Iran against any attack.

Assad’s collapse, combined with the fact that Iran is already weakened by the systematic dismantling of its proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon, has opened a unique window of opportunity for Israel to strike, a senior Israeli official told the Telegraph. “Iran is at its weakest and lowest point in 30 years. All the terrorist organizations it funded and built have fallen one after another. This is the time to strike a blow that will destabilize the regime of evil and terror in Tehran,” the official said….

The Israelis are hoping that such a devastating blow — the destruction of Iran’s nuclear program, on which it has spent tens of billions of dollars — will destabilize the Iranian regime. Such an attack would humiliate Iran’s rulers in the eyes of the Iranian people, and hearten the regime’s domestic opposition, so that they might again take to the streets to protest against the regime that has seen its every proxy — Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Syria — crushed militarily by Israel. And at the same time, such an attack, if successful, would deprive Iran of what was to have been its key military asset — nuclear weapons.

There is no disagreement among Israeli leaders on the need to destroy Tehran’s nuclear program. The opposition leader and former Prime Minister Yair Lapid, another former prime minister, Naftali Bennett, Defense Minister Israel Katz, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, and President Isaac Herzog have declared the absolute necessity of making sure that Iran does not achieve its nuclear goals. And given the reports from the IAEA of Iran’s rush to enrich more uranium to just below weapons-grade, the Israeli attack cannot be put off much longer.

The time horizon has been shortened, following new information from the IAEA. The Americans now realize that the Israelis cannot delay an attack on Tehran’s nuclear program much longer. What will be the role of the American military? Will it now help Israel by supplying 30,000-pound bunker buster bombs, and the B-52 bombers to deliver them to their targets in Iran, at the underground site at Natanz and the inside-the-mountain site at Fordow? Or will the Americans want to conduct a joint campaign with the Israelis, in a massive campaign of bombing, given that Iran’s nuclear facilities are spread out all over the country? Or a third, less likely possibility: would the Americans be willing to take on the task themselves, as they already possess the bunker-buster bombs and B-52 bombers, and leave Israel out of it?

I suspect that under Trump, America will give Israel a helping hand, but will not directly take part in any attack launched by the Jewish state against Iran’s nuclear program. Trump is opposed to involving America directly in foreign wars; he was horrified by the wasteful wars, costing trillions of dollars but leading to no good results, that America waged in Afghanistan and Iraq. As soon as Trump becomes president he will, however, likely provide Israel with what it could not obtain with Biden in power: both the 30,000 massive ordnance penetrator (MOP) bombs, known as bunker-busters, that the IAF would need to destroy the underground nuclear facilities at Natanz and Fordow, and the bombers heavy enough to deliver them. When will this happen? I predict this will be sometime between January 20 and Presidents’ Day. And not for the first time, the IDF will have made both Israel, and the world, much safer.