Israel’s Possible Strike On Iran

Colonel Richard Kemp discusses the Israeli/Hezbollah ceasefire and what Israel may decide to do to Iran’s nuclear program here.

So much for Hezbollah and its puppeteers in Tehran. But why is Israel agreeing to a ceasefire while it holds the upper hand over the terrorist gang that forced tens of thousands of citizens to evacuate from their homes in the north? There are two major issues, both to do with US pressure.

First, if this ceasefire had not been secured, it is probable that Joe Biden would have allowed through, and even himself orchestrated, a binding UN Security Council Resolution demanding a cessation of hostilities, potentially accompanied by a UN-mandated arms embargo on Israel. It would have been his cynical last ditch effort to rescue something at least from his woeful legacy on foreign affairs. Second, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu alluded to during his speech on the ceasefire, the Biden White House has been imposing a partial arms embargo against Israel that included vital munitions and combat equipment including 2,000 pound bombs. After more than a year fighting a war on seven battlefronts that is a significant constraint.

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The American threat to Israel, if it did not agree to a ceasefire with Hezbollah, was twofold. First, it has been widely reported that Biden was prepared to introduce a binding UN Security Council Resolution, that would call for an immediate cessation of hostilities, which if Israel did not accept, could lead to a UN-ordered arms embargo of the Jewish state. Second, there is already a partial arms embargo, with Washington withholding ammunition — after more than a year of war, the IDF’s supplies are running low — as well as combat equipment and 2,000 pound bombs. Prime Minister Netanyahu wants that partial arms embargo lifted, PDQ. And he was willing to accept the agreement with Lebanon in order to achieve that most necessary outcome.

Despite Biden’s efforts to hogtie Israel, there is still more work to be done against Hezbollah. Therefore the current ceasefire can best be seen as a diplomatic bridge between Joe Biden’s White House, intent on appeasing Tehran, and a Trump administration that is likely to be much more supportive of Israel’s defensive needs.

Nowhere will that be more important than over the Iranian regime. As well as directing, funding and arming the war against Israel, Tehran has been behind proxy attacks against US forces in Iraq, Syria and Jordan, strikes on Saudi Arabia and the UAE and assaults on international shipping in the Red Sea. Twice since last April, Iran has launched major missile attacks directly into Israel. As with its actions in Gaza and Lebanon, Israel’s response to those was constrained by US pressure….

Israel promised the Biden White House that it would refrain from hitting oil and nuclear installations during its strike on October 26. And it mostly kept that promise, save for an attack on a hitherto-unknown nuclear research facility at Parchin. But the dozens of other nuclear-related sites were left unharmed, as were all oil installations.

Hezbollah now has only 20% of the rockets and missiles it possessed on October 8, 2023, when it entered the war on the side of Hamas. All of its senior commanders have been killed. It has lost 4,000 combatants. Its command and control centers have been decimated. In short, Hezbollah no longer constitutes a threat to Israel and is of no deterrent value to Iran.

With the ceasefire in Lebanon, Colonel Kemp thinks now is the time for the IDF to prepare to destroy Iran’s nuclear project. In Israel’s last attack, the IAF managed to destroy Iran’s missile defense system, including the four S-300 batteries that protected Tehran, as well as Iran’s ballistic missile plants. And Israeli also managed to destroy an underground nuclear research facility at Parchin, despite having promised the Americans that it would not hit nuclear or oil installations. It did, however, refrain from striking any other nuclear facilities, including the uranium enrichment plants at Fordow and Natanz.

Now Iran has been stripped of its anti-missile defenses, making it much more vulnerable to strikes by Israel. Iran was counting on Hezbollah’s vast arsenal of rockets and missiles to serve as a deterrent, that would discourage Israel from attacking the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program. But Hezbollah has had its own arsenal of rockets and missiles reduced to 20% of its prewar number. It was the threat of a huge number of rockets being launched, at sites all over Israel, that the Islamic Republic had been counting on to act as a deterrent to an attack on Iran. That deterrent no longer exists. As soon as Iran finally delivers its long-promised response to Israel’s attack on its missile defense systems and ballistic missile plants, a response that Ayatollah Khamenei claims will be “crushing,” Israel should exploit this opening — with Iran’s aerial defenses already destroyed and Hezbollah weaker than it has ever been — to attack Iran’s nuclear project. But even without an Iranian attack to justify a full-scale Israeli attack on Tehran’s nuclear program, as soon as Trump becomes president, Israel will be able to do what it wants to Iran without fear of losing American support.