For nearly two decades, a cycle of hostilities has persisted between Israel and Iran. This enduring conflict has witnessed Iranian-directed terrorist strikes against Israeli targets on a global scale, coupled with Iran's facilitation and provision of aid to the terrorist groups Hezbollah and Hamas in their attacks on Israeli soil.
In turn, Israel has not been idle either: In recent years, several strikes were attributed to Israel on Iranian officials across the Middle East, especially in Syria but also within Iran, although it never took responsibility for them. Yet, both countries have been careful not to get to a direct and overt military confrontation between them, not through proxies, and certainly not involving missile and aircraft attacks.
Yet, despite this exchange of blows, both Jerusalem and Tehran have exercised prudence in avoiding overt, direct military confrontation between their respective forces, eschewing the deployment of proxies and certainly refraining from missile and aerial assaults.
This long-standing paradigm underwent a seismic shift last week when Iran launched a barrage of hundreds of missiles and drones from its territory toward Israel, an offensive intended to sow widespread devastation and incur substantial casualties. A precursor to this egregious attack was the direct Iranian strike on Israel in May 2018, a reprisal for the elimination of an Iranian official overseeing the regime's drone program in Syria just one month prior.
In response to that assassination, the Iranians themselves, rather than operating through proxies as was their prior modus operandi, fired dozens of missiles toward the Golan Heights – an event that was exceptional and unprecedented at the time, but which has regrettably become commonplace in the present day. Israel's retaliatory actions in the wake of that Iranian attack on the Golan Heights were characteristically feeble, limited to striking abandoned sites devoid of personnel or equipment. Moreover, the Iranians accomplished their strategic objective, as Israel has subsequently refrained from targeting senior Iranian officials on Syrian and Lebanese soil.
However, the Hamas onslaught on Oct. 7 prompted a profound shift in Israeli policy. In its wake, Israel found itself enmeshed in a multi-front campaign spanning Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen – a coordinated offensive orchestrated by Tehran, albeit while the Iranian regime maintained an outward facade of non-involvement. Consequently, it was a logical strategic decision for Israel to impose commensurate costs upon Iran in recompense for the afflictions it has perpetrated.
This escalating confrontation with Iran is unfolding at a juncture when the regime has not yet attained nuclear weapons capability, a reality that inherently imposes limitations on its strategic planning and maneuvers. It is a profoundly unsettling contemplation to envision the aggressive actions Iran might dare to undertake, and the extent to which it might promulgate provocations were it to possess nuclear deterrence capabilities sufficient to dissuade Israel and the United States from launching retaliatory strikes or responding to Iranian instigation across the Middle East.
Furthermore, a legitimate query arises: Can we reliably entrust the judgment of the ayatollah regime, which has decided upon such a massive and unprecedented assault against Israel, to refrain from employment of nuclear weapons if such an arsenal were to enter its possession?
The dilemma currently confronting Israel in the forthcoming months and years is transparent. Should the nation await the proverbial sword to be placed upon its throat, as transpired on Oct. 7t thereby being compelled into a war of "no choice"? Or should Israel instead pursue a preemptive offensive, a war of "choice"?
The last time Israel went to a preemptive war of choice initiated by us was the 1982 Lebanon War. However, the outcomes of that war paralyzed the Israeli security and political establishment for many years, and it has since refrained from initiating wars, waiting for its enemies to strike first instead, fearing committing ground forces to battle and preferring short rounds of conflict with the enemy that ended inconclusively.
It must be admitted that at the basis of Israel's launch of the 1982 Lebanon War, as well as the 1956 Sinai Operation stood an orderly worldview and creative and daring thinking, which even if they did not turn out well, still aroused strong nostalgia for times when the thinking of the Israeli leadership was not driven by a narrow worldview of response and defense, but rather an attempt to initiate and breakthrough.
The events of the past week, adding to the attack of Oct. 7, are a warning sign of what is to come, and require thinking ahead to the moment when we will find ourselves, perhaps sooner than we think, confronting a nuclear Iran.
The final time Israel initiated a preemptive war of choice was the 1982 Lebanon War. However, the ramifications of that military campaign paralyzed the Israeli security and political establishments for an extended period, and in its wake, the nation has eschewed instigating further wars, preferring to wait for its adversaries to strike first. This contemporary stance arises from an aversion to the commitment of ground forces to combat and a predilection for abbreviated rounds of conflict with the enemy that culminate inconclusively.
It must be acknowledged that foundational to Israel's rationale for launching the 1982 Lebanon War, and similarly, the 1956 Sinai Campaign, was a coherent worldview coupled with innovative and daring strategic thinking. Despite the unfavorable outcomes of those historic offensives, they nevertheless evoke profound nostalgia for an era when Israeli leadership was not constrained by a myopic paradigm of solely reactive defense but rather espoused an ethos of boldly initiating groundbreaking maneuvers.
The events of the preceding week, compounded by the Oct. 7 attack, constitute an auricular warning of the escalations yet to materialize. They mandate meticulous forethought toward the inevitability of a confrontation with a nuclear-armed Iran – a prospect that may be imminent sooner than currently anticipated.
