As the war against Hamas rages on and attempts are made to reach a new hostage deal, we should never forget who the primary sponsor of terror against Israel is – Iran. Its proxies include “the 3H” – Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis.
We should also not turn a blind eye to the fact that Iran is edging closer and closer to becoming a nuclear power, which could pose an existential threat to Israel. This cannot be allowed.
After the latest NATO Summit in Washington, Foreign Minister Israel Katz posted Thursday on X that one of the main topics discussed by the foreign ministers attending the summit – including US Secretary of State Antony Blinken – was the need to increase pressure on Tehran.
“Israel, NATO, and the entire world share a common enemy – the Iranian regime,” Katz wrote. “We must stop Iran now before it’s too late.”
No one seems to know the status of Iran’s nuclear weapons program, including the United States. On Wednesday, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) wrote a letter to Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence, accusing the administration of being in violation of the law by failing to report to Congress, as required by legislation Graham himself drafted every six months about Iran’s nuclear progress.
In the letter, Graham notes that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) recently censured Iran for failing to cooperate with it and escalating its uranium enrichment up to 60% purity in May. This, he says, is only “a small technical step away from weapons-grade 90% purity” and brings Iran that much closer to building a nuclear bomb.
In response, White House national security spokesperson James Kirby said on Thursday that President Joe Biden remained committed to making sure that Tehran would never develop nuclear weapons but denied a claim by Iran’s acting foreign minister, Ali Bagheri Kani, that the US and Iran were holding indirect nuclear negotiations mediated by Oman.
“No active negotiations are going on right now with respect to Iran’s nuclear ambitions,’ Kirby said. “I won’t speak or can’t speak to channels of communication with Iran one way or the other, but there are no active negotiations going to restore the [2015] nuclear deal.”
Kirby made it clear last Monday that the US would not resume nuclear talks with new Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, citing Tehran’s support of terrorism as a significant obstacle.
According to IAEA chief Rafael Mariano Grossi, Iran has exceeded uranium enrichment limits and is now “weeks, not months,” away from having enough enriched uranium to make a nuclear weapon.
Iran's looming threat
Stopping a nuclear Iran, which has always been a top priority for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, will surely be high on the agenda of his visit to Washington later this month when he is due to address a special joint session of Congress.
But Israel and the US cannot deal with the Islamic Republic alone. An international alliance is necessary to curb the Iranian regime’s nuclear program, led by the United Nations via bodies such as the IAEA and NATO. It must also enlist the support of the European Union and key players in the Middle East, such as Saudi Arabia.
Besides closer supervision of Iran’s nuclear program, the international community must enforce tighter economic sanctions against Tehran.
Ways must be found to stop it from funding Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis. And its funding of anti-Israel protests in the US, as Haines warned last week, must be thwarted. But this is not enough. Only decisive action will show Iran that it cannot get away with terrorism.
“Candidate objectives [to be attacked] should include Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps installations, Iranian naval assets, critical energy infrastructure, and even nuclear weapons development facilities with strike packages that are more destructive than any launched by Iran’s proxies,” he said. “Iran’s religious leaders must feel the ground shake under their own feet, both politically and militarily. If this threat is not made manifest in their minds, they will continue to feel free to attack American interests wherever and whenever they wish.”
On the other hand, as Haines concludes, if the US – and the rest of the world – continue to appease the ayatollahs, “there will be no peace.”