No Iran war: MAD.

Still, numerous Iranian politicians, including the country’s current Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have engaged in Holocaust denial. And Ahmadinejad, as you note in the book, once claimed he would “use a nuclear weapon to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth.” Are these threats to be taken seriously?

Iranian leaders have been guilty of Holocaust denialism and used inflammatory rhetoric towards Israel. But are the leaders of the Islamic Republic genocidal, and by extension, suicidal? I’m not sure they are. If Iran was to use a nuclear bomb against Israel it would be unleashing nuclear war not only in the Middle East, but globally too, and that would mean the end of the Islamic Republic. This apocalyptic scenario doesn’t fit with their behavior [thus far] as a government and as a state.

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In the book, you write that Israel often sees its relationship with Iran “through [a] prism of victimhood.” But there is a documented history of Iran attacking Israeli citizens abroad. Take, for example, two incidents that you briefly mention in the book’s introduction — the car bomb that killed 29 people and injured 250 at the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires in March 1992, which Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for; and the AMIA Jewish community center bombing in Buenos Aires two years later, where 85 people died and hundreds more were injured. Islamic Jihad has close ties with Iran and Hezbollah, and an Argentinian magistrate concluded in 2007 that Iran was behind the AMIA attack and responsible for dispatching the murderers. The attacks took place in the early 1990s. Iran, as a security issue, remained a relatively secondary concern to most members of the Israeli political and security establishment for the rest of that decade. The escalation of the Iran-Israel conflict — and its prominence in public discussions of Israel’s security challenges — is a much more recent phenomenon with roots that can be traced to events in the mid-to-late 2000s, including the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005, the Second Lebanon War in 2006, and the return of Benjamin Netanyahu to the Prime Minister’s Office in 2009. The book argues that Israelis see Iran as their foremost security challenge, but “Iranians, by contrast, have their own domestic problems and are not focused on Israel in the same way.” However, last June, Turkey detained suspects allegedly working for an Iranian intelligence cell that planned to kidnap and assassinate a former Israeli ambassador and kill Israeli tourists. Also, this month the chairman of Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council accused Iran of violating a UN Security Council resolution and other international treaties by delivering lethal weapons to Yemen’s Houthi militia. This seems to suggest that Iran is not just concerned with domestic issues. Let me first address the issue of the alleged kidnapping of a former Israeli ambassador and the plot to kill Israeli tourists. The common theme of many of these operations is that they generally seem amateurish and unprofessional, especially when viewed in contrast to much more technically sophisticated and successful operations inside Iran that are presumed to be the work of the Mossad. There have also been numerous suspected and rumored assassination attempts against Iranian dissidents and other regime opponents living abroad. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), conversely, appears to be outsourcing work to paid agents, who are frequently caught prior to the act. While this is a cause for concern, there is no indication that these activities represent an existential threat to the State of Israel. With regards to Iran’s international continued support for the Houthis in Yemen, this is part of its larger proxy campaign against Saudi Arabia. It’s well-documented. Iran is not likely to abandon this pursuit as long as it views the Saudis as adversaries. The argument I make throughout this book is the asymmetric nature of the Iran-Israel conflict. Israel sees Iran as an existential threat, based mainly on the idea that Iran will soon acquire a nuclear bomb. Iran, by contrast, does not view Israel in the same light, even though Israel already possesses a [widely assumed] sizeable nuclear arsenal of its own. That is not to say that Iran does not pose a threat or a strategic challenge to Israeli interests, nor does it suggest that Israel should stop working to counter nefarious Iranian activities abroad. So, despite the reports of foiled terrorist attacks and assassination attempts abroad, the Iranian regime’s primary focus is likely still internal. Let’s speak for a moment about the broader history between Iran and Israel, which you cover in the book. Israel secretly sold weapons to Iran during the Iran-Iraq War. How did this shape the diplomatic ties between both nations during the 1980s? Iran needed weapons and support. The Israelis wanted to supply those weapons for a couple of reasons. Firstly, to counter the Iraqi threat. Secondly, the Israelis, at least in those early years, didn’t believe the Islamic Republic would survive. Israel had hopes that maintaining a relationship with Iran could nourish a comeback with the Shah, via a military coup. During the 1980s, Iran began developing a new military apparatus known as the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). The IRGC focused most of its attention and effort on opposing Israel and exporting the Islamic Revolution abroad. How has that developed since — specifically in terms of Iran fighting a proxy war with Israel via Lebanon? Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982 and occupied the country for 18 years. Groups like Amal and Hezbollah came out of that occupation. Iranians saw it as an opportunity to form a link with Lebanese Shia groups to create a foothold on the northern Israeli border and use that to extend their power. You also note that from the 2006 Lebanon War onward, the Israeli perception of Hezbollah really began to change. The Israelis thought the war would be so easy to win. They went into southern Lebanon again and were unable to root out Hezbollah. That became a defining moment for the Israeli military and Israeli politicians, who then began to see Iran as this lurking secret threat that was much closer and more dangerous than they had previously thought. In the book, you note how in December 2007, the United States released its National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), which reported that Iran had suspended its military nuclear program in 2003. That was 20 years ago. What do we know about Iran’s nuclear capability today? Most of Iran’s advancements in nuclear capabilities have occurred in the last five years following the United States’ withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and the reimposition of sanctions. Those advancements have centered mainly around the enrichment and stockpiling of uranium to levels approaching what would be needed for a bomb, thereby reducing the amount of breakout time needed to produce a weapon. These moves, beyond the limits of the JCPOA, were clearly announced in advance by Iran as specific responses to what they viewed as a prior American violation of the JCPOA.

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How real is the threat of a nuclear war between Iran and Israel in, say, the next decade? Could such an escalation lead to World War III?

I don’t think there is a threat of nuclear war on the horizon. Until [the Iranian government] publicly comes out and says, “We have a [nuclear] bomb,” the Israelis are not going to take any action. More importantly, the United States is not going to take any action. For Iran to develop this nuclear program, they are basically going to have to withstand the possibility that they would be bombed out of existence. Remember, in decades past, the Israelis have already done this with the Iraqi nuclear program and the Syrian nuclear program.

Even if the Iranians developed a bomb, the idea that it would escalate into a full-scale nuclear war is unlikely. For the foreseeable future, though, I don’t think relations can or will improve between Iran and Israel. We are on the verge of something strange and dangerous. Based on recent history, it’s probably not anything positive.