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Your guide to what the second period of Trump means to Washington, business and the world
The writer is a great consultant at centerview Partners and an honorary chairman in the Council
So far, the initiative in the latest conflict in the Middle East was all Israel. It was the government of Israel that decided to make a war of selection, and a preventive attack on the nuclear threat of Iran. Israel took control of the airspace of Iran, which led to the destruction or destruction of many facilities related to the nuclear, killing many senior military and nuclear officials, and further deteriorating Iran’s defenses and its ability to launch retaliatory attacks against Israel.
But after less than a week, the Israeli war effort may have reached itself: Israel cannot alone achieve two main goals. Ending the Iranian nuclear program in the direct term requires military capabilities that Israel does not possess. The history of the region strongly indicates that the force of the regime by force in Iran will not be easy and may not achieve the desired result.
What happens after that will depend on the other main heroes in this conflict: the United States and Iran.
The American policy has so far been inconsistent. Washington was against Israeli military action before accepting and even demanding credit. It has provided Israel with weapons and helped defend it from revenge, but it did not join Israeli offensive actions. She succeeded in a diplomatic settlement, five rounds of talks with Iranian officials, then surrendered. Now President Donald Trump is asking that Iran surrender without restriction or condition.
The Trump administration is currently discussing whether the United States should attack the Iranian nuclear establishment underground in Fordo, which can only be penetrated through large bombs with a saving B-2, which Israel does not own.
There is some relevant date here. In the early 1990s, the Bill Clinton administration thought about attacking North Korea’s nuclear program when it was weak and is still in its early stages. Ultimately, the United States stopped, for fear that such an attack could lead to a second Korean war, which would lead to dozens of losses, if not hundreds, from South Korea and American. It was an understandable decision, but it came at a large long -term cost. Today, in North Korea there are dozens of nuclear weapons along with intercontinental ballistic missiles to be connected to the mainland of the United States.
The negative aspect of the US attack on Iran is not comparable, as Iran cannot do much against Israel more than it is already doing. But Iran can attack the 40,000 American forces stationed throughout the region. Tehran can also expand the war, choose the threat of its recently improved relations with the Gulf states and attack their Arab neighbors, in the process of paying global energy prices.
The American strike on Fordo will weaken the international base against preventive military attacks, which was chosen by Russia, China and North Korea simulating. It would reduce America’s ability to respond effectively to military challenges elsewhere. It would be closely in the United States with the unpopular Israeli Prime Minister, who angered his policies in Gaza and the occupied West Bank many of the world. Certainly, the American attack will succeed if success is defined as the destruction of all the remaining Iranian nuclear program.
But allowing Fordow to survive makes it very likely that Iran will soon be able and not to produce nuclear weapons, which is likely to be considered necessary in the wake of its failure to deter Israel in the current crisis.
Israel can slow down alone, but do not prevent this result. If Iran’s nuclear armed Iran appears, it will pose an existential threat to Israel and others. He will also be in a better position to resume supporting regional agents. An Iranian nuclear weapon will also urge a number of other countries in the region to follow, which puts the Middle East on a dangerous haircut.
There is no easy option without negatives. The best path to Trump is now giving Iran a last opportunity to accept a diplomatic deal. Such a proposal may require that Iran agree to deliver all enriched uranium, dismantle centrifugal devices and other elements known in its nuclear program, and agree to open inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Such an offer will include mitigating Iran from economic sanctions, withdrawing the American threat to the attack, a major ceasefire and some of the facial provision mechanism through which Iran can participate in the regional uranium enrichment union associated with nuclear energy generation, not weapons.
Iran may accept it. After all, Ayatollah Roh Allah Khomeini reluctantly agreed to end the war with Iraq in 1988 to save the 1979 revolution that prompted the Islamic Republic to exist. Feelini compared to take this decision by drinking poison.
Time is close to when he is behind him, the verse of God, Ali Khounai, is to swallow the poison as well.
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