Prepare to back Israel in conflict with Iran
Once again, Iran's reckless pursuit of nuclear armaments has the Middle East poised on a knife-edge. The International Atomic Energy Agency has declared that Tehran is in breach of its non-proliferation obligations for the first time in 20 years, and the rogue state's response has been to declare that it will 'significantly' increase production of enriched uranium.
British and American government warnings appear to signal the potential for an imminent conflict between Iran and Israel, with Jerusalem calling for a 'decisive' response to Iran's obstruction of nuclear weapons inspections. US President Donald Trump, meanwhile, is now 'less confident' that a deal can be reached on the country's nuclear programme, with Tehran adopting a hardline position on the matter.
It goes almost without saying that whatever steps are necessary to prevent Iran obtaining nuclear weapons must be taken. As two direct strikes on Israel last year proved, Iran's despotic state is perfectly willing to use force to protect its terrorist proxies in neighbouring countries, and to attempt to pressure the Jewish state into abandoning its efforts at self-defence.
Equally, events have made it perfectly clear where Britain's interests and allies in the Middle East are, even if Sir Keir Starmer's Government sometimes seems confused on this point. The Iranian state is a destructive and destabilising force across the region, sponsoring terrorism and fomenting chaos from Houthi strikes on vital shipping lanes to its long-standing support for Hezbollah.
If permitted to obtain nuclear weapons, Tehran would inevitably feel emboldened to take these actions further, hiding behind threats of raining destruction down on any party which attempted to rein in its behaviour. This would be an untenable situation for the Jewish state. Iranian leaders have repeatedly called for its destruction, while funding those attempting to bring that about.
While military action is not inevitable, if the Israeli government concludes that a targeted strike against Iran's nuclear capabilities is the only way to prevent this scenario coming to pass, Britain and America should not stand in its way.
Instead, the role of the wider West now is to work with our allies in Jerusalem in working out how to best contain the Iranian threat, dismantle its nuclear power, and prevent the worst case scenario of a nuclear armed theocracy coming to pass.
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'The president seems to still hope that his preference for a diplomatic solution can be salvaged,' said Nimrod Novik, a former foreign policy adviser to the Israeli government. 'Few in the political-security establishment here share that hope.' He added: 'From an Israeli vantage point, it seems that the better the operation looks, the more Trump wants to own it.' The question in the days to come is just how long the US will stay on the sidelines. How the American role in the conflict could escalate According to the New York Times, the Israeli attack plan that Trump rejected in April, 'would have required U.S. help not just to defend Israel from Iranian retaliation, but also to ensure that an Israeli attack was successful, making the United States a central part of the attack itself.' The conventional wisdom has long been that a military strike to destroy or seriously degrade Iran's nuclear enrichment capability would require US involvement: Iran's key enrichment sites are located in fortified facilities deep underground, and destroying them would require heavy bunker-buster bombs. Israel doesn't have those bombs or the heavy bombers required to carry them, but the US does. But that's not the approach Israel took, at least initially. Analysts say Israel does not appear to have struck the most heavily fortified compound at Fordow, or its nuclear site at Isfahan. A third key nuclear enrichment site, Natanz, sustained only light damage. Instead, Israel's strikes targeted Iran's top leadership, including the commander in chief of its military and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and prominent nuclear scientists. Several military bases around Tehran were hit, as well as air defense systems. 'This was not a campaign against Iranian nuclear facilities,' said Nicole Grajewski, an expert on the Iranian nuclear program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. 'This was a campaign against Iranian command and control and leadership.' This was, however, just the opening salvo of a campaign that Netanyahu said 'will continue for as many days as it takes to remove this threat.' The operation's aims could very well expand. 'This is day one,' noted Raphael Cohen, a military analyst at the RAND Corporation. 'On day 20, day 40, day 60, once everything drags on as stockpiles dwindle, that's when we're going to start to see to what extent Israel needs the United States.' How will Iran respond? Iran fired at least 100 drones at Israel on Friday, which, so far, appear to have been intercepted without causing any damage. Notably, it has not yet fired ballistic missiles, its most potent long-range threat. The Iranian leadership is likely still reeling from the losses it sustained. Its capacity to respond is likely also hampered by Israel's success over the past year and a half against Iran's network of proxies across the Middle East. Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based militia that was once the most powerful of these proxies, but was decimated by last year's pager bombings, has been notably quiet so far, in contrast to the wide-ranging rocket barrage it launched immediately after the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks. Iran fired missile barrages at Israel twice last year, first in April in response to the bombing of the Iranian embassy in Damascus, and a second, much larger barrage in October in response to the killing of Hamas and Hezbollah leaders in Tehran. Neither caused extensive damage, though in the October strikes, Israeli air defenses were overwhelmed in some places, suggesting that a larger strike could cause serious damage. Iran may have as many as 2,000 ballistic missiles at its disposal, and Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff reportedly warned senators last week that Iranian retaliation could cause a 'mass casualty event.' 'In October, you saw more advanced ballistic missiles being used, but not like the full suite of Iranian ballistic missiles,' Grajewski told Vox. She also noted that during both strikes last year, Israel needed international support to successfully repel those attacks, notably help from the US military in shooting down missiles as well as intelligence support from a previously unlikely alliance of Arab countries sharing intelligence. Though the Trump administration was perfectly willing to cut a quick deal with Yemen's Houthi rebels, despite the group continuing to periodically launch missiles and drones at Israel, a massive attack of the type Witkoff warned is a different story. Israeli policymakers are likely counting on the Trump administration to assist in mounting the kind of multilayered defense that the US did under Joe Biden last year. Could Iran attack Americans? Iranian leaders are plainly not buying US disavowals of involvement in Israel's operation. Military commanders had warned that US forces in the Middle East could be exposed to attack in retaliation for such a strike. In the days leading up to the attack, the US partially evacuated its embassy in Baghdad and authorized the departure of personnel and families from other sites in the region due to that risk. Iran has generally been very wary about taking steps that could draw the US into a direct conflict, preferring to act through proxies. This would suggest a direct strike on US facilities or a drastic move likely blocking the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz, which could cause a spike in global energy prices, is unlikely. Attacks by one of Iran's proxy militias in Iran, or a resumption of strikes against US ships by the Houthis, seem somewhat more likely. On the other hand, we may simply be in uncharted waters where the previous rules of restraint don't apply. The Iranian government will almost certainly feel it has to mount some significant response, if only for its own credibility. There have already been some reports of civilian casualties–if those increase, the need to respond will only grow. For Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 'there's a personal element,' said Alex Vatanka, senior fellow at the Middle East Institute. 'How do you get yourself out of the situation without being entirely humiliated? … Is he going to do what Qaddafi did and give up his nuclear program, or is he going to say, you know, what, to hell with it, I'd rather die. I'd rather seek martyrdom. It remains to be seen.' How much has Trump changed? Khamenei isn't the only leader whose motives are something of a mystery at the moment. During his first term, Trump authorized the strike that killed senior Iranian military leader Qassem Soleimani, a major provocation, but also called off a planned strike on Iranian soil due to concerns about escalation. During his second term, he has been surprisingly unconcerned about coordinating with Israel — cutting deals with the Houthis as well as launching nuclear talks with Iran that Netanyahu was highly skeptical of from the start. His administration this time includes some notably less hawkish voices when it comes to Iran, such as Vice President JD Vance, who has warned against letting Israel drag the US into a war, and described it as a scenario that could 'balloon into World War III.' In 24 hours, Trump has gone from publicly opposing an Israeli strike to taking at least partial credit for it. Netanyahu, who has been advocating an operation like this for years, is likely hoping that continued military success will prompt Trump to abandon his hopes of a big, beautiful deal and join the fight.
