KARV Senior Advisor, Amir Handjani, publishes article “Israeli Actions Push Iran Closer to Nuclear Weapons” in Stimson

KARV's Senior Advisor, Amir Handjani, an expert in Middle East relations, shares his thoughts on the current state of affairs with Israel and Iran. Amir is a Fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible State Craft and a Fellow with the Truman National Security Project.

"As Israel and Iran edge closer to a full-blown conventional war that would likely involve the United States, much attention will be focused on how much damage these long-time adversaries can do to each other, to U.S. forces, and to the global economy. But even more ominously, the potential for such a conflict is creating new incentives for Iran to make a dash toward building deployable nuclear weapons, a step that would end Israel’s nuclear monopoly in the region and fundamentally change the security landscape of the Middle East.

In the aftermath of the July 31 Israeli assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, many Middle East analysts have been expecting an Iranian retaliation similar to the missile and drone barrage Iran unleashed against Israel in April in response to Israel’s killing of an Iranian general and six other Iranian officers in a diplomatic compound in Syria.

In April, Iran had telegraphed what it was going to do and gave the United States and its coalition partners ample time to put in place an interlocking web of layered missile defenses to shoot down almost all of what Iran had launched. The few missiles that did land caused minimal damage and no fatalities. A few days later, Israel sent a missile that landed near Iranian air defenses outside Isfahan which also did minimal damage. The crisis was averted, as both sides saved face and went back to their respective corners.

This latest confrontation is different. The assassination of Haniyeh in a government guest house in a supposedly well-protected part of Tehran only hours after the inauguration of a new Iranian president was a huge embarrassment for Iranian security forces, especially for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) which is tasked with protecting the Hamas leader and other VIPs. If Israel could kill Haniyeh while he was under the protection of its military apparatus, who else could Israel kill in Iran if it so desired?

The killing, along with high-profile assassinations over the last decade of Iranian nuclear scientists and top IRGC generals in Iraq and Syria, makes many Iranians question the competence of the regime’s praetorian guard. The security forces are ruthlessly efficient when it comes to quashing domestic uprisings but not competent to protect Iran’s interests against its most formidable foreign adversaries.

This sense of inferiority and vulnerability felt by the upper echelon of the IRGC could push Iran’s aging and usually cautious Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei into uncomfortable positions.  Under Iran’s constitution, the Supreme Leader is the commander in chief of the armed forces and has the final say over any military action beyond Iran’s borders. U.S. intelligence has consistently emphasized that Ayatollah Khamenei eschews confrontation and is wary of conflict with Israel that could lead to a protracted war with the United States.

However, if Israel and Iran were to engage in a conventional air war, the IRGC could press Khamenei to reverse his religious edict or fatwa, banning Iran from producing weapons of mass destruction. Iranian political figures have repeatedly referred to this edict as binding on them and the IRGC.

Especially given the failure of the April strikes to establish deterrence – and the mass mobilization of U.S. military assets in the region since Haniyeh’s death — it can’t have escaped the minds of top military brass in Tehran that Iran is capable of posing only limited security threats to Israel without risking an overwhelmingly forceful response from both Israel and the United States that could target key Iranian infrastructure and possibly its nuclear installations. The only way Iran could take that option off the table would be if it possessed a nuclear deterrent of its own.

After the April exchange between Iran and Israel, the IRGC commander in charge of the security of Iran’s nuclear program said that if Israel acted against Iran’s nuclear facilities that could lead Iran “to revise our nuclear doctrine and deviate from our previous considerations.” He added that Iran would retaliate against any strike by Israel on Iranian nuclear installations with one of its own. “We know exactly where the enemy’s main nuclear sites are,” he said.

It’s no secret that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long pressed for the United States to use military means to degrade Iran’s nuclear program, recognizing the limitations of Israel’s capabilities compared to the U.S. So far, the last four U.S. administrations have resisted that call. However, should large-scale warfare between Israel and Iran break out, the temptation to strike Iran’s nuclear sites may become overwhelming for Israel and Iran hawks in Washington.

Recently, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina introduced a bill that would authorize the U.S. to strike Iran for threatening the national security of the United States through the development of nuclear weapons.

Since the Trump administration quit the Obama-era Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in 2018 and reimposed economic sanctions on Iran, Iran has made significant advances in its nuclear program but has not yet enriched uranium to weapons grade.  If Israel and Iran were to engage in a protracted war and Iran perceived Israel’s nuclear monopoly to be an existential threat limiting Iran’s military response, the IRGC leadership could bring significant pressure on the Supreme Leader to reverse his edict against nuclear weapons and Iran could commence overt and possibly covert steps to change its nuclear posture.

This possibility is one reason why the Israeli gambit of openly humiliating the Iranian leadership is so dangerous. In the end, it may force Iran to build the nuclear weapon that Israel and the West have long feared and diminish Israel’s and Washington’s ability to attack Iran with impunity.”

Read the complete article, here.