Israel is at a critical juncture after an Iranian member of parliament recently claimed that Iran has already built a nuclear weapon and days after International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director Rafael Grossi said Iran may be just weeks away from developing a nuclear weapon.
Should Israel strike Iran first, possibly with nuclear weapons, to eliminate Iran’s nuclear program, or should it take a wait-and-see approach?
The first option has the potential to overthrow the tyrannical Ayatollah and earn the gratitude of the Iranian people, but it also risks isolating Israel internationally. The second option threatens the collapse of the Jewish state and the loss of millions of Jewish lives.
difficult decision
Two crucial factors in assessing which of these undesirable options is most frightening are mutually assured destruction (MAD) and the presumed rationality of Iranian leaders.
MAD deterred nuclear aggression by both the Soviet Union and the United States during the Cold War, believing that nuclear retaliation would ensure the destruction of the aggressor. This deterrence was effective because the populated areas of the United States and the Soviet Union were similar in size, making retaliatory destruction symmetrical and certain.
But in Iran-Israel relations, no such geographic symmetry exists. Israel, at 8,630 square miles, is just over 1 percent of Iran’s 636,372 square miles. In other words, Iran could eliminate Israel with just a few nuclear weapons, but the Jewish state would need to retaliate with dozens of nuclear missiles to inflict comparable damage on the Islamic Republic.
Given this imbalance, MAD would not prevent Iranian leaders from choosing a nuclear attack. Therefore, the only factor that can inhibit aggressive decision-making is their rationality.
However, rationality is not homogeneous. In mainstream Judeo-Christian frameworks, rationality involves promoting world peace and prosperity. In other ideological frameworks, such as those held by Nazis or Islamic extremists, rationality includes a variety of goals.
For example, the Nazis’ enthusiasm for Jews was not unreasonable if they viewed Jewish genes as a mortal threat to human civilization. Similarly, it is reasonable to destroy Zionism if you believe that the Jewish state undermines Islam’s monopoly on religious truth and supremacy. Even if Israel’s retaliation ultimately kills millions of Iranians, the ayatollahs may not be daunted if they believe that God will provide paradise for their martyrdom.
The true probability that Iran will carry out a nuclear attack against Israel cannot be calculated before the attack actually occurs. However, an assessment of Iran’s past and current policy choices reveals the Iranian leadership’s true priorities and objectives.
Iran has spent about $20 billion arming proxy forces and militias in the Middle East, according to a Radio Liberty report citing the commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps. Given the significant economic and social problems facing ordinary Iranians, this spending suggests that promoting global peace and prosperity is a low priority for Iran’s leadership.
This lack of Judeo-Christian rationality is underscored by the enormous economic and diplomatic costs that Iran would incur by defying international demands regarding its nuclear program: the economic cost of international sanctions imposed on Iran is estimated at $4 trillion.
Given Iran’s extensive oil and gas resources and the absence of threats to its territorial integrity, the only rational reason for Iran’s nuclear program to be so costly is to pursue more aggressive military adventurism. It is to provide protection against
From a mainstream Judeo-Christian perspective, this military adventurism is irrational. However, from a framework based on the theological goals of Shiite Islam, the development and use of nuclear weapons against Israel is perfectly rational for several reasons.
- The destruction of Israel and Zionism is seen as a noble act of religious devotion.
- Paradise will be granted to both the victors and the Iranian victims.
- Destroying Israel would increase the prestige and power of Shiite Islam and potentially draw millions of Sunnis into the Twelve Shiites.
- The destruction of Israel will hasten the return of the Mahdi, who will bring about Islamic global hegemony.
- Israel’s reluctance to deploy nuclear weapons during the Yom Kippur War and Jewish humanitarian values could lead to non-retaliation against an Iranian nuclear attack.
- Israel’s decision not to retaliate against the barrage of Iranian drones and missiles since April 13th likely reflects the Ayatollahs’ belief that a MAD scenario is unlikely and that Israel would not respond to an Iranian nuclear attack. It is highly likely that the recognition has been strengthened.
Based on these assessments and the aggressive and nihilistic acts of war by Iran’s ideological allies and military proxies in Gaza, Lebanon, and Yemen, there is little reason to believe that Iran will not use nuclear weapons against Israel. Destruction of the Jewish state has been the Islamic Republic of Iran’s most consistent foreign policy objective since 1979, and rulers willing to suffer their own people in order to destroy Zionism are at the mercy of the suffering of the Israeli Jewish minority. It won’t move.
Iran’s military power and significant influence in international energy markets, as well as the Sisyphean nature of past and current wars against jihadist forces in Gaza and Lebanon, could create the false impression that a wait-and-see policy is the safest policy. There is. Israel’s actions against Iran’s nuclear program.
Yet based on past and present statements by Iranian ayatollahs and Revolutionary Guard commanders, their ideological beliefs, and their consistent policy choices over more than four decades, Israeli leaders should take the Iranian threat as seriously as European Jews should have taken the threat of Nazi Germany on the eve of the Holocaust.
The author is an independent political analyst based in Berlin. A graduate of Yale and Hebrew University, he can be contacted at rafaelcastro78@gmail.com.
