Description
During 2008, Israel launched a massive aerial exercise over the Mediterranean believed to simulate an air attack on Iran. It was also rumored that then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert asked President Bush in May of that year for permission to overfly Iraq, which Bush denied. If true, it meant that Israel was primed to strike Iranian nuclear targets at that time, in the same way it struck Iraq (1981) and Syria (2007) to destroy nuclear facilities in those states. Such attacks align with the Begin Doctrine, which instructs that countries hostile to Israel must not be allowed to develop a nuclear military capability.
The 2010 Stuxnet cyber attack against the Natanz enrichment complex in Iran likely delayed the necessity of an air attack at that time, when it was believed Iran was within a year or two of achieving nuclear weapons capability. The subsequent 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), negotiated between Iran and the P5+1, created another delay with Iran’s agreement to halt its nuclear program and allow nuclear inspections.
The United States withdrew from JCPOA in 2018 and Iran began to violate the agreement in 2019 by increasing its enrichment activities, enlarging its stockpile of enriched Uranium, and installing advanced centrifuges at Natanz. Should such violations continue, Iran will be back on the path to a bomb, and Israel will be obligated by the Begin Doctrine to respond.
The presentation will highlight why this scenario has become more likely and what the US should do in response.