Iran's down. But far from out.

Politico

2 days ago

With help from Daniel Lippman
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Israel and its boosters in Washington are making the case that its overnight strikes in Iran were an unmitigated success. But analysts and former officials across the spectrum are offering words of caution about the effects of the attack.
'We have a lot of things still ahead of us. And we have to make sure that the damage assessment is done properly so that we make sure the attacks achieve the goals that we were expecting,' argued retired Brig. Gen. YOSSI KUPERWASSER, a former top official in the Israel Defense Forces' military intelligence division.
Israel's defenders argue first that the strikes were a devastating blow to Iran's nuclear capabilities. They also argue that the killing of top commanders limits Iran's ability to respond to the strikes and poses new threats to Israel's security in the near-future.
Those points seem to be resonating in the White House, where President DONALD TRUMP has voiced a lot more pleasure with the Israeli strike than the administration's first statements on Thursday. Trump is among those calling it a 'success' today.
The strikes have certainly dented major components of Iran's nuclear program. Yet Israel only targeted the Natanz enrichment site, and didn't hit Iran's Fordow and Isfahan nuclear facilities, per the International Atomic Energy Agency. Those omissions, coupled with the fact Israel lacks the 'bunker-busting' bombs that could take out Iran's underground nuclear facilities, mean Tehran could still rebuild its nuclear program.
There's no question that the killing of top commanders has rattled Iranian leadership, per ALI VAEZ, an analyst at the International Crisis Group. But Vaez cautions that comparing the strikes on Iranian military commanders to the killings of Hamas and Hezbollah leaders over the last year neglects the obvious distinction that Iran, unlike its proxies, is an actual state that has a pool of political talent at its disposal ready to take the reins and fill key leadership roles.
'I'm sure they're reeling from the loss of top military leaders and the degree of Israeli intelligence and intelligence penetration into their system,' Vaez told NatSec Daily. 'But that doesn't mean that they will be, you know, completely paralyzed in the way that Hezbollah was in the aftermath of' the killing of leader HASSAN NASRALLAH.
Case in point, Iran launched a volley of drones and missiles at Israel in retaliation for the Thursday strikes. Kuperwasser warned that the Iranian attacks over the next few weeks will be fierce.
'Everything that they have prepared in their lives in order to cause damage to Israel is going to be used because this is the world that everybody was prepared for,' warned Kuperwasser. 'They're not going to keep it for rainy days. Rain is falling now.'
The Inbox
'SQUID GAME' LAYOFFS AT STATE: Hundreds of State Department employees could lose their jobs in the next few days as the Trump administration imposes its reorganization plans — and the process is drawing serious pushback from diplomats who say it's unfair.
One key frustration: Secretary of State MARCO RUBIO's team plans to cut jobs in part based on which offices they're eliminating, a method that clashes with personnel rules. One result is that Foreign Service officers, who rotate positions every few years, could lose their jobs simply depending on where they're based now, as opposed to their skill sets and performance.
Laying off diplomats this way 'amounts to a Squid Game version of musical chairs,' one State Department official told The Financial Times. We at NatSec Daily have heard similar accounts.
TRUMP'S IRAN DILEMMAS: Israel's strike on Iran might be complicating Trump's political calculations, our colleague Rachael Bade reports.
Israel's strikes on Iran are testing Trump's commitment to avoiding 'forever wars' in the Middle East, Rachael writes. And MAGA allies are warning that the base doesn't want to see the U.S. take an active role in any fighting between Israel and Iran.
Turning Point USA leader CHARLIE KIRK warned that a strike on Iran 'will cause a massive schism in MAGA.' Meanwhile, MOLLIE HEMINGWAY, editor-in-chief at The Federalist said that Israeli strike 'would be seen as an unforgivable betrayal by millions of American voters.' Those comments mirror MAGA messaging earlier this week ahead of the expected strike.
There's merit to the MAGA activists' assertions. A poll released Thursday by the Institute for Global Affairs found that a majority of Trump voters believe that better relations with Iran will boost American national security.
MAGA may also hate the strikes if it comes to believe Israel is attempting to secure regime change in Tehran. Nahal writes today that some Middle East watchers suspect Israel's ultimate target may be trying to overturn the Islamist government. Airstrikes did target, but failed to kill, Supreme Leader ALI KHAMENEI and President MASOUD PEZESHKIAN. Former U.S. officials aren't bothered by the possibility of Israel toppling the regime in Tehran.
'Why not? Sure,' said one former senior U.S. official who dealt with Middle East issues during the Biden administration. 'Wouldn't that be grand?'
TARIFFS AFFECT SECURITY TOO: European Council President ANTÓNIO COSTA says the fight over tariffs is preventing Europe from living up to the Trump administration's wishes for greater European burden-sharing on common defense.
'Trade conflicts and tariffs risk are more than a distraction from this aim; they undermine the very economic strength that is needed for this strategic transition,' Costa wrote in a piece published Thursday evening in The Financial Times. 'Uncertainty, disruption of global supply chains and lower economic growth all hinder the ability of states to increase investment in security and defense.'
It's the latest expression of a theme your NatSec Daily hosts have heard a lot in conversations with European officials ahead of this month's NATO summit — that tariffs are stifling the ability of the continent to meet Trump's ambitious defense spending targets. The fact that a top European official is publicly making the point, however, signals Europe may look to raise the issue in the coming weeks.
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Keystrokes
ARMY'S STAR RECRUITS: Some of Silicon Valley's top tech whizzes are trading in their hoodies and lululemon joggers for a chance to wear camo.
Senior executives at Palantir, Meta and OpenAI will be sworn in today as part of the inaugural cohort of the U.S. Army Reserve's new innovation corps, The Wall Street Journal's Heather Somerville reports. The new initiative will see tech reservists serve for 120 hours a year, and serve as lieutenant colonels who advise on everything from artificial intelligence to commercial tech acquisition.
The initiative is part of an effort by the Pentagon to better prepare for conflict with a tech-savvy adversary in China. And, it's a sign of Silicon Valley's deepening appetite to work with the U.S. military — and the Trump administration — something that was considered anathema only a decade ago, Somerville writes.
AI SMUGGLING: Chinese engineers have found a simple workaround to the U.S. government's increasingly stringent semiconductor export controls: a briefcase and plane ticket.
As the Biden and Trump administrations have cut off Beijing's access to leading American chips, Chinese companies have responded by sending their engineers abroad with hard drives containing terabytes of AI training data, write The Wall Street Journal's Raffaele Huang and Liza Lin. In countries like Malaysia that do have datacenters powered by leading U.S. chips, the engineers then train powerful AI systems — and then fly them back home.
The data smuggling maneuver is, in part, a sign of China's desperation for American chip technology. But it could pose an increasingly big challenge for U.S. export control policy, Huang and Lin write, since the Trump administration has eased up Biden-era restrictions on the export of semiconductors to countries across the Middle East and Southeast Asia.
The Complex
ICE PACT SYNC UP: It took a couple days, but Canada, Finland and the U.S. are finally making progress on efforts to jointly manufacture icebreakers.
Representatives from the three nations wrapped a two-day meeting today focused on advancing their Icebreaker Collaboration Effort. The ICE Pact is a new initiative by the three countries to ramp up the production of Arctic and polar ice breakers — highly specialized ships that can clear a path through frozen waters. The ships are expected to be critical as adversaries like Russia and China attempt to expand their access to Arctic shipping resources, mine its resources and project power.
In a read-out of the meeting, Finland's foreign affairs ministry said the three nations collected recommendations from their respective shipping industries on the pact, and discussed potential areas for collaboration. The next meeting of the initiative, which was inaugurated November of 2024, will take place in the U.S. in the fall.
It's a sign that not every Biden-era defense pact is at risk of being reviewed by the Trump administration (cough cough, AUKUS).
MARINES' MISSION: U.S. Marines officially began their deployment in Los Angeles today to protect U.S. government buildings in the city, per Reuters' Brad Brooks, Phil Stewart, Idrees Ali and Dietrich Knauth. The move came shortly after the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily blocked a lower court ruling preventing the deployment from taking effect during the review of the Trump administration's appeals.
Broadsides
LANDAU'S X ORDEALS: Deputy Secretary of State CHRISTOPHER LANDAU trashed U.S. Ambassador to NATO MATT WHITAKER — and the military alliance itself — in a (quickly deleted) X post, the New York Times reports.
Whitaker posted a routine note on X Tuesday about how NATO works with Indo-Pacific-based partners, then Landau used his account the following day to reply that Whitaker 'obviously didn't get the memo of our Deputies Committee meeting on this very issue. NATO is still a solution in search of a problem.'
It wasn't clear if Landau meant his thoughts to be public or intended to share them in a private note. Still, the post underscored the deep skepticism Trump administration officials have toward the military alliance. It's also another sign of how eager Landau is to be seen as a loyal soldier in Trump world, as Puck's Julia Ioffe has chronicled. Landau didn't immediately respond to NatSec Daily's request for comment.
Transitions
— RONALD ROWE JR. is joining the Chertoff Group as a senior adviser. He previously was acting director of the Secret Service.
— ALEX CLARK is now head of innovation at defense robotics company Allen Control Systems. He is the former senior director of advanced innovations at BlueHalo.
What to Read
— Christine Murray, Financial Times: Panama risks boiling over as Donald Trump's threats supercharge protests
— Carien du Plessis, The Africa Report: Ex‑South African envoy to U.S. unrepentant about 'supremacy' remarks
— Daniel Drezner, Drezner's World: Is Tulsi Gabbard okay?
Monday Today
— The Center for Strategic and International Studies, 9:30 a.m.: 'Korea-Japan Relations: What to Expect?'
— American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 4:00 p.m.: Former Attorney General BILL BARR delivers the inaugural Laurence H. Silberman Lecture on Law and National Security.
— The Council on Foreign Relations, 6:00 p.m.: 'Strategic Crossroads: NATO's Agenda for the Hague Summit.'
Thanks to our editors, Heidi Vogt and Ester Wells, whose nuclear breakout capabilities remain far too potent for comfort.