An Israeli strike on Iran might throw the region into chaos. The best option would be to constrain Iran’s programs rather than accept the fiction that Iran spins its centrifuges and test-fires missiles merely because of pride or fear
If Iran readies nuclear missiles for launch, Israel must take it out
WASHINGTON, D.C. — On January 29, Iran conducted its tenth ballistic missile test since the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the July 2015 landmark nuclear deal.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif rebuffed accusations that the launches were a violation and declared that Iran would “never depend on the permission of anyone else for their self-defense.”
But is Iran’s missile program really defensive? Israeli leaders have reason not to take Zarif at his word.
Consider the late Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, the father of the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program.
While Western officials eulogized him as a force for moderation, Israeli leaders remember him for his December 2001 boast that Iran could annihilate Israel with a single nuclear bomb.
Even if Israel managed to launch a retaliatory strike, he explained, Iran’s size would allow it to absorb the blow. “It is not irrational to contemplate such an eventuality.”
What he did not say, but the International Atomic Energy Agency subsequently determined, was that Iran was at the time covertly experimenting with nuclear triggers and warhead design.
Rafsanjani wasn’t the only ayatollah to acknowledge Iran’s goal to produce nuclear weapons.
Ayatollah Mohammad Baqer Kharrazi, secretary general of the Iranian Hezbollah, said in April 2005, “We are able to produce atomic bombs and we will do that... The United States is not more than a barking dog.”
A month later, Gholam Reza Hasani, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s representative to the West Azerbaijan province, said nuclear weapons were among Iran’s top goals. “An atom bomb . . . must be produced,” he said. “That is because the Quran has told Muslims to ‘get strong and amass all the forces at your disposal.'”
But didn’t Iran turn a new page when it agreed to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action?
Today, Western diplomats depict Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani as a moderate. At a February 2005 speech at Ferdows University, he outlined his strategy: Lull Americans into complacency with dialogue, and then deliver a knockout blow.
The diplomatic battle over whether Iran’s missile tests violate UN Security Council Resolution 2231 and the Iran nuclear deal revolve around whether they can carry nuclear warheads.
Zarif suggests the program is innocent but, here too those more involved with the program disagree.
When Gen. Hassan Moghadam, father of Iran’s missile program died in November 2011, his will requested his epitaph read, “The man who enabled Israel’s destruction.”
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Shortly after the Iran nuclear deal was signed, Iran launched missiles painted in Hebrew with the words, “Israel must be wiped out.”
Even if Iranian diplomats are sincere, they do not control Iran’s military nuclear program; Iran’s Revolutionary Guards do.
While analysts and diplomats talk about hardliners and reformers among Iranian politicians, nearly four decades after the Islamic Revolution, however, neither the United States nor Israel have good insight into factional divisions among the Guards.
This means that neither the Pentagon nor the Israeli defense ministry know whether the men whose fingers could be on the button to launch Iranian missiles truly believes in the ‘Death to America, Death to Israel’ slogans.
This brings us to Israel: Israelis do not want war. They know that if they have to preempt an Iranian strike, Iran’s retaliation would be severe. Even if Iran doesn’t strike back directly, Lebanese Hezbollah has more than 100,000 missiles poised to rain down on Israeli towns and villages.
The nature of existential threats, however, is that they leave no choice. The clock is already counting down on the expiration of the nuclear deal.
True, an Israeli strike on Iran might throw the region into chaos even if some Arab states would quietly cheer Israel. But if that’s the case, then the best option would be to constrain Iran’s programs rather than accept the fiction that Iran spins its centrifuges and test-fires missiles merely because of pride or fear.
Michael Rubin is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise, who has lived in post-revolution Iran. He hold a doctorate in history from Yale University. His newest book is “Dancing with the Devil: The Perils of Engaging Rogue Regimes. Readers may write him at AEI, 1789 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20036
