Israel’s strikes on Iran were inevitable opinion star-news.press/wp

In the early morning hours of June 13, the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched the RISing Lion operation – a continuous campaign of air strikes targeting the Iranian nuclear program. This effort continues. Israeli officials Indicate The strikes will come in multiple waves, over a period of several days, as the country is working to erode the vast nuclear establishment of Iran and convey any possible revenge for the regime.

The current campaign is exciting, but it can barely say it is a surprise. For years, Israeli officials have warned that Iran’s nuclear threat was an existential threat to the Jewish state, and it may require a direct military action to mitigate. Likewise, did Iranian observers follow the state of progress in the nuclear effort of the Islamic Republic? (My first book on Iran, Tehran ascendingAnd that dealt with the possibility of an Israeli strike on the Iranian nuclear program, was published two decades ago, in the summer of 2005.)

However, the timing of the Israel strike was unexpected, as it was among the Trump administration’s efforts to negotiate a more durable deal with the Iranian regime on its nuclear program. Traditional assumptions have admitted that Israel will refrain from any action until these negotiations failed either completely or concluded in an unsatisfactory manner – and that if a deal with the Islamic Republic was exposed, no Israeli military action will be submitted at all.

So what happened specifically? Although additional details will undoubtedly be revealed in the coming days, we already know a great deal about what happened and why.

First, Israel’s decision to strike was On According to the accumulated intelligence information that Iran has accelerated its efforts to develop a nuclear device in recent months, and as a result it was now approaching the “point of return” in terms of its ability to enrich and the uranium weapon.

Second, Israel’s large-scale campaign-referring to the use of about 200 combat aircraft-from strikes on major nuclear sites, including Uranium Natanz enrichment facility, Research attachment in TabrizAnd reactors in Everyone who see you and Fundab. It also struck Many defensive industrial nodesIncluding in Kermanshah and Safhan.

In addition, Israel is targeting A number of keys Officials in the leadership of the Iranian regime’s military regime chain. Three senior generals in the country canceled the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Commander Major General Hussein Salami, Chief of Iranian Military Staff Major Muhammad Baghri, Ali RashidHead of the Epity Crings, IRGC. Likewise, Ali Shamkhani, a relative assistant to the supreme leader Ali Khamenei (and the former Iranian Defense Minister). Bend A meeting of senior leaders in the Iranian Air Force In Tehran. It seems that all of this had a double purpose: eliminating military leaders through the Iranian nuclear program (which is hosted by IRGC), and disrupting planning for any Iranian retaliatory response.

However, the Israel campaign did not include strikes against the regime. This helped to clarify something that many asked: whether Israel, if it attacked Iran, will take advantage of the head to beheading the Iranian elite, which leads to “changing the system” from the inside. This is still a distinctive possibility, and it is likely to dictate the nature of the inevitable response of Iran. At the present time, Israel has not stopped targeting the country’s religious leadership, with a focus instead on the country’s nuclear program and setting military targets.

At the same time, the Israel strike definitely raised questions about its impact on the broader “special relationship” between Washington and Jerusalem, and for a good reason. Trump administration Make up In recent days, Israel wanted to stop military action while negotiating with the Islamic Republic, which led some to conclude that Israel’s work came in a challenge to the White House. Reality, however, is much more complicated.

Israeli officials have long understood that military action against Iran was impossible if they had a “red light” of the White House. However, in recent days, the stalling nature of American negotiations with Iran and the increasing frustration by President Donald Trump with his Iranian stubbornness has been created in the opening of Israeli work, and the Netanyahu government took it.

I did it independently. President Trump has clearly explained that the United States is not interested in the leaders of a military campaign against Iran, but it will support an Israeli strike under certain circumstances. The government of Israel was pain to ensure that these teachers met – clearly by choosing the goals that, although they were widespread, were limited to military, nudist facilities and employees. This decision kept Israel within the borders of American policy, and left the door open to US -Iranian negotiations.

Indeed, the Israel strike has improved the Trump administration’s negotiation situation, indicating the disastrous consequences of failed diplomacy. And the White House takes advantage of this opening; President Trump is already Publicly In order for the Iranian regime to continue the talks and make meaningful concessions, fearing it will face a more severe work. In this way, Israel allowed America to play the role of “Cop Good”, and the negotiating arrangements that were tested in the short Iran that was tested across Iran, and improving opportunities for a kind of meaning with Ayatollah to contain their stubborn nuclear effort.

The coming days will bring additional measures by Israel. It will certainly witness an Iranian response. But Iran’s written leadership is now facing a fateful option, as it may avoid it for a very long time: the regime, or nuclear weapons. The undeclared message of the military campaign of Israel is that Tehran cannot be for them.

Ilan Berman is the first vice president of the US Foreign Policy Council in Washington, DC

The views expressed in this article are a writer.