Israeli-Iranian war inevitable---Iranian nukes, American retrenchment, and increased Iranian deterrence capability.

Israel has had military confrontations with Iran’s proxies, Hizballah, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Hamas. Jerusalem has been determined not to allow the emergence of a Lebanese situation in Syria, where missiles threaten the Jewish state. Therefore, starting as early as 2013, Israel began to attack Iranian-linked targets in Syria to prevent the entrenchment of Iran and its proxy militias in Syria. These attacks also serve to destroy Iranian-made missiles shipped to Hezbollah in Lebanon, as well as components aimed at improving their accuracy.

The IDF has mostly kept a low-profile approach, choosing not to publicize its operations. By January 2019, thousands of targets were hit, according to then Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot.[20] Israel was successful in partly removing the Iranian supported militias from its immediate border, although Iran continues to deploy its forces and weapons in Syria as well as at the Iraqi-Syrian border crossings. It also retaliates from time to time, even in small measure, just to make a point. Despite relentless Israeli attacks, Iran has shown determination to continue with its projects, even though it faces domestic problems as a result of US sanctions, dwindling oil revenues, street protests a harsh economic reality and recently a Covid-19 crisis.

Yet, Iran is determined to create its Shiite corridor, weaken Saudi Arabia and eventually evict the US from the Middle East. While Iran initially hoped to outlast President Trump, when it felt the pinch of the economic sanctions, Teheran decided to change gear by making use of its nuisance value. Attacks on oil shipping in the Persian and Oman Gulf took place without Iran taking responsibility. Similarly, Iran attacked the Khurais oil field and the Abqaiq oil processing plants with drones and cruise missiles, rendering them temporarily out of commission (Saudi Arabia’s oil output was subsequently cut by more than 50%). In June 2019, Iran’s IRGC’s shot down a United States surveillance drone over the Strait of Hormuz and starting in January 2020 Tehran has launched missiles at American targets in Iraq. Its militias continue to harass the American military presence in that country.

Despite the change in Washington’s policy toward Iran, Trump preferred a diplomatic avenue. The US relied on maximum economic pressure in order to get “a better deal,” but so far, Iran seems undeterred and continues its brinkmanship. The US is also distracted by its efforts to meet the Covid-19 challenge. It is highly unlikely that the Trump administration will attack Iran’s nuclear installations before a change of guard in Washington. In contrast, Biden is determined to try restoring an upgraded JCPOA, which will leave Teheran with the nuclear option.

Such a reading of these developments causes growing concern in Jerusalem. As Iran gains growing influence in the Middle East and challenges Israel’s monopoly over nuclear weapons in the region, and the new American administration simultaneously seems unlikely to take determined action against the Iranian nuclear program, a larger conflagration between Tehran and Jerusalem looks more likely.

The threat perception in Israel is great. Israel takes very seriously the Iranian threats to eradicate the Jewish state — a people that has a long history of persecutions, pogroms and a Holocaust will not ignore threats of extinction. Iran’s nuclear aspirations are seen in Israel as an existential threat, lending domestic legitimacy for military action against Iran.

Prime Minister Netanyahu consistently and emphatically reiterates that Israel will not allow Iran to become a nuclear power. An indication of the Israeli mood is the resolute speech given by the IDF Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi, on December 25, 2019. He singled out Iran and its proxies as the main threat against Israel and made clear that an Israel-Iran collision is almost inevitable. He added that the military has been preparing for such a scenario. Kochavi also hinted at the inaction of the Gulf states and the United States in the face of Iranian strikes on oil installations and ships. “It would be better if we weren’t alone,” he remarked.[21] Kochavi also established a new directorate to be headed by a Maj.-General to contend with the Iranian threat, recently renamed the “Strategy and Third-Circle Directorate.” The IDF expects the Iranian threat to be a top priority in the coming years.[22]

During the past decade, Israel has made preparations to attack Iranian nuclear infrastructure.[23] Despite the many obstacles to a successful mission, the IDF seems capable of executing it. While the signing of the JCPOA undermined international legitimacy for Israeli action, nowadays, for all intents and purposes, the original JCPOA is a dead document.

Israel’s policy on nuclear proliferation in the Middle East has thus far been consistent. Obstruction and delaying stratagems have been used to deal with emerging nuclear threats. The June 2020 explosion at Natanz and the November 2020 assassination of Iran’s most senior nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh seem to be recent examples of such obstruction. When these tools are no longer effective, surgical air strikes are employed to destroy the nuclear installations in neighboring countries. In 1981, the Iraqi Osiraq reactor was demolished due to its potential to produce plutonium. A similar fate awaited the Syrian reactor in 2007. Preemption of an emerging threat is part of the menu of policy choices in Israeli strategic thinking.

The rationale for destroying the potential military nuclear capability is simple. Israel does not believe that it can achieve stable deterrence with a hostile nuclear armed Middle Eastern state. Being a state with a small territory and only a short distance away from its regional rivals, Israel feels very vulnerable to a nuclear attack. The likelihood of accidents, unauthorized launchings, miscalculations, or regime collapse in Middle Eastern states is much higher than in other parts of the world. The period before the establishment of credible second-strike capabilities and safeguards, resembling those implemented throughout US-Soviet Union relations, is particularly dangerous. Also significant is securing a second-strike posture is an ongoing process fraught with uncertainties.[24] Furthermore, deterrence is dependent upon sensitivity to cost. Religious fanaticism, widespread in the Middle East, is reducing sensitivity to cost. Indeed, Iranian leaders have expressed a willingness to lose millions of people in order to eradicate the Jewish state.[25] They boast about their culture of Jihad and martyrdom.

There is a growing urgency to destroy Iran’s burgeoning nuclear capability because of consistent Iranian advances in their nuclear and missile projects.

Israel might strike to preempt the return of Iran to the negotiating table. Under additional pressure, Iran may revert to a strategy of “talk and build” to buy time. Such a strategy capitalizes on European and American reluctance to escalate. Deciding that negotiations are useless requires alternative action, which is not an enticing option for many governments. Essentially, inconclusive talks preserve a status quo, a tense standoff in which Iran can go on uninhibited with its nuclear program. Indeed, bargaining, at which Iranians excel, and temporary concessions postpone diplomatic and economic pressures and, most importantly, preventive military strikes.

Israel might strike earlier rather than later in order to prevent additional improvements in Iran’s defensive measures around its nuclear installations. The embargo imposed by the UN Security Council on the sale of weapons to Iran expired in October 2020. As a result, Iran can now purchase the weapon systems that it sought unsuccessfully to obtain in the past. Iran is likely to buy weapons mainly from Russia, which has been its principal arms supplier since the 1990s, and its shopping list will probably include the Sukhoi S-30 aircraft and the S-400 advanced air defense systems.

After the elimination of Soleimani, the IDF saw a chance to step up attacks against Iran and its allies to further limit Iranian presence in Syria.[26] Such escalation in Syria could be capitalized upon to hit the Iranian nuclear project. Preemptive actions in Iraq and Syria ended the nuclear projects in these states. Moreover, these precedents show that great regional repercussions are not inevitable.

Israel may also escalate its military responses to prevent a bandwagoning effect in the Gulf states and Saudi Arabia. These states are aligned with Israel, particularly since the signing of the Abraham Accords. But, as Iran becomes more powerful in the region and the US security umbrella becomes less reliable, reorienting their foreign policy towards Tehran might become more attractive. Their apprehensions about the Iran policy of the new Biden Administration could be a contributing factor in such rapprochement of Sunni states with Iran. Such a drastic change in the foreign policy of the Gulf states and Saudi Arabia might then affect Jordan and Egypt (which both have peace treaties with Israel), further isolating Israel in the region. An Israeli show of force will therefore keep the Sunni states aligned with Israel.

History teaches us that when a rising power challenges the balance of power, in most cases war ensues. This phenomenon has been termed “hegemonic war.”[27] Hegemonic wars are caused by the differential growth of power among the dominant and aspiring states. A hegemonic war cannot arise during a period of relative stability; rather, the uneven growth and decline of power is a necessary factor which eventually leads to bipolarization of the international system, creating an inevitable crisis in the form of a hegemonic war. Such a competition in the Greek city system ended in the Peloponnesian wars. Prussia’s quest for the unification of the German principalities under its helm caused several European wars.

In the Middle East, we see an ascendant Iran that is no longer balanced by the declining Arab states, and that their security provider, the US, is seemingly leaving the region. While not predetermined, Israel may go to war to prevent a Middle East dominated by a nuclear Islamist Iran. As a matter of fact, it already takes military action to stop its encirclement by an Iranian inspired ring of fire.

Conclusion

A nuclear arsenal is Iran’s best insurance for regime survival and for achieving regional hegemony. Thus, it is inconceivable that the mullahs will give up the quest for the bomb. Diplomacy and/or economic sanctions are unlikely to stop Iran from going nuclear. Whatever efforts at “regime change” were made they were unsuccessful. The international community, including the US, has no appetite for military confrontation with Iran. At present, Iran’s imperial and nuclear aspirations remain unchecked.

Israel cannot tolerate a nuclear Iran. Iran-Israel relations are essentially a zero-sum game, leaving Israel little choice but to act upon its existential instincts. Therefore, escalation in the use of force to reverse the Iranian ascendance in Middle East politics, prevent its nuclearization, as well as the encirclement of Israel by Iranian proxies, is probable, adding a new dimension to the Iran-Israel war already underway. Assuming that Israel has the capability to destroy the key elements of the Iranian program, such option makes eminent strategic sense. Unfortunately, only military action can prevent the descent of the Middle East into an even more brutish and dangerous region.