Iran’s ballistic missile attack against Israel on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, was a stark reminder that nuclear Armageddon in the Middle East looms ever nearer.
According to Israeli spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, Iran struck Israel with 180 missiles. Most were either intercepted by Israel’s vaunted Iron Dome missile defense system or fell harmlessly into open fields.
Nonetheless, as Lerner noted in a CNN interview, 10 million Israelis were forced to take shelter during Iran’s missile barrage. One person died, a Palestinian laborer named Sameh al-Asali, near the biblical city of Jericho in the West Bank, when shrapnel from an Iranian missile fell on him.
This time, Iran’s ballistic missile warheads were conventional. Yet ominously, they foreshadowed how Iranian nuclear or chemical strikes against Tel Aviv or Jerusalem could be delivered in the not-so-distant future.
Israel will hit back, and it will hit back hard. Simply re-establishing strategic deterrence is not going to be enough. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his security cabinet view Iran as a rapidly emerging existential threat.
Tehran is dangerously close to nuclear breakout for either Jerusalem or Washington to kick this nuclear can down the road any longer. Iran has a sufficient mass of highly enriched uranium and enough centrifuge capacity to construct three nukes in 10 days. It only needs to perfect a triggering mechanism to become a nuclear power.
Iran’s growing nuclear threat to Israel is not occurring in a vacuum. Its unimpeded development to date has been shielded by Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s seven-front war against the Jewish State.
Israel, up until now, has been focusing on addressing the coordinated Iranian threats closest to the home front. These were Hamas after Oct. 7, Hezbollah (to secure its northern border in accordance with UN Resolution 1701) and the Houthi rebels, backed by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Khamenei, to date, has been trying to play whack-a-mole with Netanyahu as cover for his nuclear weapons program. Meanwhile, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian was in New York City last week, making new overtures to Washington about the potential for a new nuclear deal to replace the Obama-era deal that former President Donald Trump abandoned.
Netanyahu is not falling for it. Zooming out to high altitude, it is increasingly clear that Israel on a calculated and methodical basis has been strategically peeling back Khamenei’s nuclear onion.
Hamas was the first layer. Hezbollah is the second. Direct military and economic damage to Iran will likely be the third. And the fourth and final layer will be to destroy Khamenei’s nuclear weapons program.
To get there, Jerusalem needs President Biden and his national security team’s full strategic and tactical support. Israel needs every weapon and munitions capability available to decisively peel back each layer of Iran’s war against Israel.
Yet Biden’s call on Wednesday for Israel to conduct a “proportional response” is strategically far short of where he needs to be. So too was his risk-averse response to a question standing beneath Air Force One when he answered “No” as to whether he would support Israel striking Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Biden yielding strategic ambiguity was short-sighted. Likewise, it is further proof that he fails to yet grasp that Iran is playing for time in the Mideast to win its nuclear endgame against Washington and Israel.
Gaza, Lebanon and Iran are all the same fight. A regional war has been underway for months, but Washington has been reluctant to admit that it even exists. Throughout the summer, the White House and Pentagon have argued it is working to avoid, as Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder put it, “a wider, regional conflict.” But that is nonsense for two reasons. First, Sunni Arab states have not shown any willingness to get involved. Second, it already is a regional war. Iran started it long ago.
In an effort to distract further from its nuclear weapons program, Iran could try to spread its war to neighboring Gulf States such as Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. Should U.S. intelligence indicate an imminent attack on the Gulf States, the U.S. would have to be militarily prepared to preemptively thwart any Iranian attempt to disrupt global oil supply and widen the conflict.
The Biblical Armageddon is the modern-day town of Megiddo, in northern Israel. But its nuclear ground zero is in Tehran. Preventing nuclear Armageddon means defeating Khamenei inside of Iran and ultimately with regime change as the desired end-state.
Khamenei, in striking Israel, has ceded the initiative to Netanyahu. Iran is clearly struggling to respond to Israel’s rapid escalation against Hamas and Hezbollah. Khamenei likely knows his nuclear weapons program is now at risk.
Israel has multiple paths to take the war to Tehran. Hitting Iran’s oil facilities would inflict immense economic pain on Khamenei. This could include refineries, oil ports and energy infrastructure.
Israel’s bank of targets likely includes many of Iran’s nuclear facilities, spread throughout the country. These could include the uranium enrichment plant in Natanz, an enrichment site buried inside of a mountain in Qom and research facilities such as the Tehran Nuclear Research Center and Esfahan Nuclear Technology Center.
Israel's killings of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh and so many top Hezbollah leaders suggest that it may even target the Iranian regime itself. This could include Khamenei himself, and Hossein Salami, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Expect Israel’s response to be significant. Iran’s capability of repeating Tuesday’s attack on Israel will be at the top of the list, including its air defense network, early warning radars, ballistic missile launch sites, storage facilities, command and control, and IRGC bases.
Iran to date has largely been spared in the war it started against Israel. That has allowed Khamenei’s state-controlled media to control the narrative that Iran is winning, despite the strategic losses Israel is inflicting on Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis.
Netanyahu and his security cabinet are likely determined to change that narrative. It is a new year in Israel, and Jerusalem’s messaging will be clear: Khamenei started this war, and the IDF is going to end it by defeating Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and ultimately nuclear Armageddon in Iran.
Mark Toth writes on national security and foreign policy. Col. (Ret.) Jonathan Sweet served 30 years as an Army intelligence officer.
