Can, meet end of road

Israel gives a gift to the world

Israel’s Thursday night attack on Iran was, in addition to being the most important step for the peace of the world in a very long time, just a breath of fresh air. Every sane person knew that Iran was building The Bomb, but (or so it seemed to me and many others) Donald Trump was going to keep yammering about a deal that would never be reached and, if reached, would never be obeyed or enforced. So we’d kick the can a bit farther down the road and tell ourselves that we’d bought more time to be safe — until the mullahs decided to launch, when it would be too late, and the dawn of a far darker and more fearsome time for the world would be upon us.

I was 100% wrong, which I am joyously grateful to admit. Trump didn’t launch the attack, but it’s all but universally accepted that, in one way or another, he approved it, after nixing two earlier Israeli calls to initiate (as Paul noted yesterday). Moreover, as Paul also noted, Trump announced a perfectly reasonable deadline for negotiations with Iran to produce something worthwhile, and the day after the deadline was missed, the threat got enforced:

On April 12, President Trump told the Iranian regime it had 60 days to make a deal to end its nuclear program. Yesterday, on the 61st day after this warning, Israel launched a full-scale attack on that program and the military leaders behind it.

I have repeatedly criticized Trump for being a blowhard who long ago forfeited his credibility by bluster followed only by………..more bluster. But in the most urgent matter he has faced since he resumed office, he came through.

Before Thursday, I was convinced that Trump was the better choice for President, but mainly just because he, unlike Kamala Harris, isn’t wedded to an ideology and a political party that hates the country and wants it brought down (and hates whites, Jews, capitalism, the police, straight men, women’s sports, your gas stove, etc., etc.). I had my doubts that he had many affirmative virtues that wouldn’t be subverted, or worse, by his flaws. But he was at the helm when, with whatever verbal distance (as in Sec. Rubio’s statement), Iran for the first time in close to 50 years now has reason to fear the West. Since 1979, when the mullahs seized our embassy and its staff without consequence, and started in with “Death to America,” Iran has sewed terrorism and hate pretty much as it wished. It now understands that its actions have consequences.

My guess is that this has not passed unnoticed in China and Russia. I don’t know what will come of that, but it seems likely to change the complexion of their thinking in ways beneficial to the United States.

And one other thing: The United Nations (specifically, the International Atomic Energy Agency) was actually useful for something. Very shortly before the Israeli attack, it issued a report saying, among other things:

The draft for Thursday’s resolution highlights serious and growing concerns since at least 2019 that Iran had failed to cooperate fully with the UN agency’s inspectors.

Tehran has “repeatedly” been unable to explain and demonstrate that its nuclear material was not being diverted for further enrichment for military use, the draft text maintains.

Iran has also failed to provide the UN agency with “technically credible explanations for the presence of [man-made] uranium particles” at undeclared locations in Varamin, Marivan and Turquzabad, it continues.

“Unfortunately, Iran has repeatedly either not answered, or not provided technically credible answers to, the agency’s questions,” IAEA chief Grossi said on Monday. “It has also sought to sanitize the locations, which has impeded Agency verification activities.”

According to Mr. Grossi, Tehran has stockpiled 400 kilogrammes of highly enriched uranium.

I don’t know that the UN report figured into the timing of Israel’s attack, but even if not, the coincidence was wonderfully helpful. Indeed, it was so helpful that I wonder if it actually is a coincidence. When the UN has spent decades greasing the skids for the world’s thugs, and then finally calls out one of the most atrocious, a person might be tempted to believe there’s something going on we’re not seeing. Something like, say, a big fat bribe from Trump to finally spill the beans. If that’s what happened, my admiration for his behavior in this instance has grown still more.

Still, and as ever in adult life, the question is: Now what?

There are at least two things to consider in addressing that question — what is Israel’s long-term objective; and (relatedly), how does Iran think about getting The Bomb from this point forward.

This article gives what I view as mature consideration to each.

Any effort [solely] to cripple Iran’s nuclear program would focus heavily on two targets: the nuclear enrichment facilities at Natanz and Fordow. While Israel did target Iranian nuclear scientists, the physical facilities do not appear to have been taken out. Israel hit Natanz, but early expert assessments suggest only limited damage. And there is no evidence, at least publicly, that Fordow was hit in the opening round at all.

So if the true target is the nuclear program, why did Israel expend so much effort targeting Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities and military leadership while doing relatively little damage to nuclear infrastructure?

There are, broadly speaking, two answers to this question.

The first is that Israel plans to hit the nuclear facilities harder as the war goes on. By killing Iran’s military leadership — including nearly its entire air command — Israel has weakened Iran’s ability to defend its airspace and retaliate against the Israeli homeland. These first strikes, on this theory, were laying the groundwork for later strikes more focused on nuclear facilities….

The second interpretation is that Israel has even bigger plans. It will heavily target the nuclear facilities, to be sure, but it will also engage in a wider campaign to undermine the very foundations of the Iranian regime. By taking out key leaders, Israel is weakening the Iranian government’s ability to maintain its grip on power. The ultimate Israeli hope would be that these strikes have a similar effect in Iran as Israel’s devastating strikes on Hezbollah did in Syria — damaging the government’s ability to repress so severely that it creates space for domestic opponents to topple it….

But if Israel’s ambitions are wider — nuclear demolition plus regime change — then we could be in for a much longer, deadlier, and riskier campaign.

With all respect to what I understand is the gravity of this conclusion, it seems to me that such a campaign is unavoidable. Why would the West leave the Nazis in Tehran standing any more than they left the Nazis in Berlin standing 80 years ago? The atomic bomb was the immediate problem this last week, but the actual problem is Jihadism and its home in Iran. As long as that stands, the West is never going to be safe.

The second and (obviously) related question is how Iran will think from this point forward about acquiring nuclear weapons. This is, to say the least, not a fun topic to discuss, but we have no choice.

It is, as a technical matter, impossible to permanently prevent a country from building a nuclear bomb in a single attack. Whatever gets destroyed can eventually be rebuilt if the targeted government is truly committed to acquiring a weapon….

Israel cannot, by force alone, remove Iran’s will to build a bomb. So even if Israel does serious damage to Natanz and Fordow — a real “if,” given Fordow’s extensive fortifications — it can’t stop the Iranians from repairing it without launching another strike in the future. Moreover, a successful Israeli attack would solidify Iran’s interest in acquiring a nuclear deterrent, meaning that Iran would invest huge amounts of resources in a nuclear rebuild as soon as the bombs stopped falling.

On this logic, one Israeli strike commits Israel to a forever war: bombing Iran at regular intervals to prevent it from reconstituting its program.

Or it commits Israel (and the United States) to seeking regime change, as noted above — and, much more importantly, as the statements coming from both governments seem increasingly to stress. The problem, of course, is that government statements aren’t going to get it done. If it can be done at all, it’s going to take lots of sabotage and unified pressure from the West.

Still, there is only so much to pack into one post. For now, we can be grateful that, for once in our political lives, and in a matter of grave importance, the can of Iran’s acquiring The Bomb got kicked down the road and kicked down the road — and then the road actually stopped.