How the anti-war Trump made Israel's Iran strikes inevitable

Ever since Trump killing off the JCPOA, the way for Israel to limit Iran's nuclear programme was by destroying it

In May 2018, Donald Trump withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal, known as the JCPOA¹. Trump had referred to it as the “worst” deal the United States had “ever” signed up to. One suspects that this was primarily because it had been a signature policy of the Obama administration, rather than his detailed critique of the text. Whilst it was not perfect, the JCPOA achieved a direct effect of limiting Iranian nuclear enrichment activity to levels that prevented it from having nuclear weapons. At the time of the Trump withdrawal, Iran was judged to be in compliance with the deal. It was also continuing all kinds of nefarious activities across the Middle East, sponsoring militias and supplying terror groups. But those elements were not part of the JCPOA (something which has - perhaps correctly - earned the deal criticism).

Once Trump had killed the JCPOA there wasn’t an effective mechanism for limiting Iran’s nuclear programme. Israel carried out a shadow war of assassinations of nuclear scientists and other disruptions but it didn’t prevent Iran increasing its stocks of enriched uranium to a point very close to that needed for several nuclear bombs, something which the UN watchdog reported only two weeks ago. This appears to have had two impacts: it pushed Israel to decide to launch a long-planned attack on Iran’s nuclear programme, which is unfolding as I write this, and it pushed the Trump administration to increase the tempo of its talks with the Iranians (effectively to remake a version of the JCPOA).

There are various rumours and theories about the synchronicity here: some have said that the USA was due to participate in Israel’s attack, but Trump pulled out at the last minute (TACO). Another possibility is that Israel believes its attacks will force the Iranians to cut a deal with Trump. Time will tell.

Does Israel have a point?

But there is a point about Israel’s choices: you don’t have to be any kind of fan of Benjamin Netanyahu to think that Iran having nuclear weapons would be a bad thing. If Iran can be prevented from having them through diplomatic means, so much the better. But once Trump had killed the JCPOA, there was a logic to Israel’s kinetic approach. (It’s important to note that many Israelis opposed the JCPOA all along, so perhaps this approach is their preferred one.) The other point to note is that Iran’s ability to retaliate is almost zero, for all their blood-curdling threats. Their network of regional proxies have been severely degraded by Israel, from Hizbullah, to Palestinian Islamic Jihad, to the now-dead Assad regime, to Iraqi militias. The only one left is the Houthis, still able to fire missiles at Israel, but sufficiently distant that its ability to have real impact is limited. Iran’s air defence is clearly severely degraded, its response to Israel of firing a hundred drones was meaningless (not a single one got through) and much of its leadership, both of the IRGC special forces and the military itself has been killed in Israeli strikes. Iran will surely launch more strikes, but I severely doubt their ability to inflict real damage.

To illustrate the degree to which Iran has been completely humiliated by Israel, we are learning that Mossad launched drones to attack the Iranian nuclear programme from a base it had established inside the country. This is way worse than what Ukraine did to Russia in Operation Spider’s Web. Of course, Iran may still have some ace card it has yet to play, but it seems more likely that Israel will succeed in destroying most of its nuclear programme and face little risk of real retaliation, because it has already degraded Iran’s capabilities.

The only real question remaining is what impact Israel’s attacks have on wider regime stability in the Islamic Republic. Some have suggested that the effect will be for the population to pull together in the face of an external enemy. But for the many thousands of Iranians who have known close relatives and friends be murdered, beaten, imprisoned and more by the regime, it seems unlikely they will suddenly change their views just because Israel has attacked the nuclear programme. So will these strikes lead to a popular uprising and the downfall of the regime? The difficulty there, as Charlie Gammell told me in a recent podcast episode (see below), is there is no credible government-in-waiting. This is not to say a popular uprising won’t happen - but we’re in a very different place to where we were when Ayatollah Khomeini flew back to Iran from Paris, to be greeted by vast revolutionary crowds.

Absent that leadership ready to step in, perhaps the collapse of the Islamic Republic will lead to something like a military takeover - hardly an improvement for ordinary Iranians - but a slightly more pragmatic regime that is willing to de-escalate its tensions with the wider world. In the meantime, I think it is most likely that Iran has been defeated by Israel. But if, somehow, its nuclear programme survives, it will have all the more reason to want to use it, since its non-nuclear deterrence has failed utterly.

1. Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action