Israeli Actions Push Iran Closer to Nuclear Weapons

As Israel and Iran edge closer to a full-blown conventional war that would likely involve the United States, much attention will be focused on how much damage these long-time adversaries can do to each other, to U.S. forces, and to the global economy. But even more ominously, the potential for such a conflict is creating new incentives for Iran to make a dash toward building deployable nuclear weapons, a step that would end Israel’s nuclear monopoly in the region and fundamentally change the security landscape of the Middle East.

In the aftermath of the July 31 Israeli assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, many Middle East analysts have been expecting an Iranian retaliation similar to the missile and drone barrage Iran unleashed against Israel in April in response to Israel’s killing of an Iranian general and six other Iranian officers in a diplomatic compound in Syria.

In April, Iran had telegraphed what it was going to do and gave the United States and its coalition partners ample time to put in place an interlocking web of layered missile defenses to shoot down almost all of what Iran had launched. The few missiles that did land caused minimal damage and no fatalities. A few days later, Israel sent a missile that landed near Iranian air defenses outside Isfahan which also did minimal damage. The crisis was averted, as both sides saved face and went back to their respective corners.

This latest confrontation is different. The assassination of Haniyeh in a government guest house in a supposedly well-protected part of Tehran only hours after the inauguration of a new Iranian president was a huge embarrassment for Iranian security forces, especially for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) which is tasked with protecting the Hamas leader and other VIPs. If Israel could kill Haniyeh while he was under the protection of its military apparatus, who else could Israel kill in Iran if it so desired?