Hours after the International Atomic Energy Agency’s board of governors passed a resolution declaring Iran breached its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Israel executed a wide-ranging, thorough, and successful attack on the regime’s military capabilities. Iran will now surely retaliate, but the regime has already proved itself to be a force for death and chaos in the region, and Israel’s impairment of the regime’s destructive potency is a service to the world.
President Donald Trump set Thursday, the day before the attacks, as his two-month deadline for nuclear talks with Iran to succeed.
“We remain committed to a Diplomatic Resolution to the Iran Nuclear Issue!” Trump said on social media Thursday, as his Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff was set to meet with Iranian negotiators to continue talks with Iran in Oman. It now appears that those talks may have lulled Iran into a false sense of security.
The breadth of Israel’s strike was truly astonishing and shows that it was planned months in advance. In addition to striking multiple facilities and sites related to Iran’s nuclear program, Israel also managed to kill much of Iran’s military command and its leading nuclear scientists, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’s entire air force command. In a classic stroke of Israeli planning brilliance, the air force commanders were lured into a meeting at a site Israel had determined as its target. The Israelis also used drones and missiles to disable Iran’s air defenses and its ballistic missile launching capabilities.
U.S. personnel were evacuated from the region throughout the week, and Trump told the New York Post on Friday that he “always knew the date” of the strike. Iran has canceled the scheduled Sunday meeting with Witkoff.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) blasted Israel’s effort to defend itself, saying it “risks a regional war that will likely be catastrophic for America.” But this statement ignores that Iran has been conducting a regional war with the U.S. for years. Iran’s Hezbollah and Houthi proxies have been planting improvised explosive devices, firing rockets, shooting missiles, and launching drones to kill and maim Americans for decades. They have even attempted to assassinate Americans on American soil. None of the current or past nuclear negotiations, including former President Barack Obama’s deal with the Iranian regime, changed any of this behavior.
On the nuclear front, the IAEA vote Thursday underscored how precarious any new negotiated deal with Iran would be. As the United Nations watchdog detailed, Iran has been violating its obligations under existing nuclear treaties for years. And when the IAEA finally issued its findings, Iran responded by announcing it would launch a brand new enrichment center in a “secure location” away from the accountability of international inspectors.
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, now faces a choice. He can escalate and rush toward a nuclear weapon, or he can launch a feeble response to save face.
CALIFORNIA HAS NO RIGHT TO ITS OWN IMMIGRATION POLICY
That is what happened last time when Israel killed two senior commanders of the Guard in Damascus last April. In response, Iran launched 170 drones, 30 cruise missiles, and 120 ballistic missiles at Israel, almost all of which were intercepted by a joint effort of the U.S., the United Kingdom, France, and Israel. Two Israeli air force bases were hit, some damage was caused, but no one was killed.
Any attention and resources diverted from the Pacific and China pose a risk to the national security of the U.S. But an unchecked Iran is also a danger and Israel did us a favor by crippling its military capabilities Friday.