Israel's Iron Dome anti-missile system intercepts rockets after Iran fired a salvo of ballistic missiles, on Oct. 1.Amir Cohen/Reuters
The U.S. vice-presidential debate this week opened with a question about whether the United States should support a “pre-emptive strike” by Israel on Iran. It was not a hypothetical question. The prospect of all-out war in the Middle East is suddenly very real, and the U.S.-Israel relationship risks being tested as never before.
After Iran’s Tuesday missile attack on Israel, it was left to the running mates of Democratic nominee Kamala Harris and Republican top-of-ticket Donald Trump to tell American voters how their respective bosses would respond, as pleas for de-escalation in the region were being drowned out by the drumbeats of war.
“Steady leadership is going to matter,” Democratic vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz insisted in an entirely evasive answer. “A nearly 80-year-old Donald Trump talking about crowd sizes is not what we need in this moment.”
GOP vice-presidential nominee J.D. Vance was less evasive, but still left out critical details. “It is up to Israel what they think they need to do to keep their country safe. And we should support our allies wherever they are when they’re fighting the bad guys.”
Just what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has in mind as he vows to make Iran “pay” for launching almost 200 ballistic missiles at targets near Tel Aviv is the subject of frenzied speculation. Hardliners are urging Israel to carry out major attacks on its rival’s oil refineries and nuclear sites – even though such a move could lead the Islamist regime in Tehran to hasten its efforts to produce an atomic bomb.
An Israeli assault on Iran’s underground uranium-enrichment facilities could not be conducted without U.S.-supplied “bunker-buster” bombs and aircraft needed to carry them. But Israel could on its own strike at other nuclear sites, such as the Isfahan Nuclear Technology Center, with the aim of stalling Iran’s progress toward building a nuclear weapon.
Such a strike would carry incalculable risks all around, but Iran hawks are urging Israel to seize the moment.
“Israel has now its greatest opportunity in 50 years to change the face of the Middle East,” ex-Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett wrote on X. “We must act *now* to destroy Iran’s nuclear program, its central energy facilities, and to fatally cripple this terrorist regime.”
A Wall Street Journal editorial this week called Iran’s missile attack “an act of war against a sovereign state and American ally and it warrants a response targeting Iran’s military and nuclear assets. … The question for American and Israeli leaders is: If not now, when?”
U.S. President Joe Biden shot back with a pointed “no” when asked on Wednesday whether he supported an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities. He instead called for a “proportional response” by Israel to this week’s missile attack – which was effectively thwarted by Israel’s missile defence systems, aided by the U.S.
Still, Washington is bracing for much more lethal Israeli retaliation after this week’s attack than its measured response to the unsuccessful drone and lower-grade missile attack Iran conducted in April. Then, Mr. Biden reportedly urged Mr. Netanyahu to “take the win” and de-escalate tensions in the region.
The already fraught relationship between the two leaders has deteriorated further since, and Mr. Netanyahu’s popularity at home has increased significantly thanks to Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and its campaign to degrade the Lebanon-based, Iran-backed terrorist group’s military capability.
Mr. Netanyahu likely sees the U.S. presidential election campaign as a window of opportunity to force both Ms. Harris and Mr. Trump to step up their declarations of support for Israel’s right to defend itself and tie the hands of the next administration. Indeed, no matter who becomes president, the U.S. would most assuredly be drawn into any direct military conflict between Iran and Israel.
“The counterproductive effect of a limited strike on Iran’s nuclear program could lead Israel to consider a large-scale military operation to set the program back as decisively as possible,” Dariya Dolzikova and Matthew Savill wrote in an April analysis in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. “This option, however, would almost certainly result in an all-out, highly destructive war.”
The first anniversary of Hamas’s Oct. 7 murderous attack on Israeli civilians and the war in Gaza that has killed thousands of Palestinians could mark a turning point in the Middle East – and not in a good way.
Hamas and Hezbollah, Iran’s two main proxies in the region, are increasingly incapable of doing its violent bidding. A direct military conflict between Iran and Israel now seems likely to replace the tit-for-tat violence of recent months as the Islamist regime in Tehran and Mr. Netanyahu move toward the showdown that they have long considered to be inevitable.
The current U.S. President seems helpless to stop it. The next one may be, too.