In 1992, shortly after his re-election, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin told an academic workshop in Tel Aviv that he considered a nuclear-armed Iran to be the greatest threat facing the country. Although this meeting was only revealed years later, it marked the beginning of Israel’s increasing concern over Iran’s nuclear program and the development of potential military plans to target it—similar to the operations Israel carried out against Iraq’s nuclear reactor in 1981 and a suspected Syrian reactor in 2007.
For over 20 years, however, two key factors prevented Israel from taking action. The foremost concern was that a strike might not receive backing from the United States, risking damage to Israel’s vital alliance with its most powerful partner. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, after leaving office, summed up this dilemma by saying that the only way to stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon was either for the U.S. to carry out the attack itself or, at the very least, to refrain from blocking Israel if it decided to act.
The United States has consistently pledged to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, but successive presidents have resisted Israeli appeals for the U.S. to launch or participate in a military strike. George W. Bush was preoccupied with the invasion of Iraq and its disastrous consequences; Barack Obama and Joe Biden prioritized diplomatic solutions—though Obama did authorize the use of a 30,000-pound bunker-buster bomb to demolish a replica of Iran’s underground Fordo nuclear site during a test in the southwestern U.S. desert.
Donald Trump, despite his more aggressive rhetoric, was guided by an isolationist approach and avoided initiating new conflicts. However, he reportedly came close to ordering a missile strike during the chaotic final days of his presidency after losing the 2020 election.
Beyond a general reluctance to be drawn into another Middle East war, U.S. leaders have also worried about retaliation from Iran or its regional allies, particularly against the 40,000 American troops stationed throughout the region. In fact, a sign that Washington may have been informed in advance of Israel’s recent strike came when the U.S. evacuated non-essential personnel from its embassies in Iraq, Bahrain, and Kuwait 36 hours before the attack.
Another major reason Israel never followed through on its threats to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities was the fear of devastating consequences.
Although Israel and Iran do not share a border—the two nations are about 1,700 kilometers apart—Israeli leaders believed that any military action against Iran would trigger widespread retaliation from Iran’s regional allies. These include Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, Hamas in Gaza and the West Bank, and Shiite militias operating in Iraq and Syria.
Hezbollah, the most formidable among them, was thought to possess up to 150,000 rockets, including precision-guided missiles. During its 2006 war with Israel, the group proved to be a serious threat, and the conflict ended in a draw. Israel assessed that, in the event of renewed hostilities, it could face a barrage of up to 1,200 rockets per day from Hezbollah in Lebanon—enough to bring the country to a standstill.
Israel’s decision to launch an attack last week marks a historic turning point—driven by sweeping changes across the Middle East and beyond that have removed long-standing constraints on Israeli action. The traditional balance of power and assumptions that once shaped the region have crumbled, and what comes next will likely be determined by the outcome of a full-scale conflict between two of the Middle East’s most powerful nations.
A key factor that made the strike possible was that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was no longer facing resistance from a U.S. president. In a phone call the Monday before the attack, Donald Trump reportedly urged Netanyahu to delay any military action, hoping to give space for Washington and Tehran to reach an agreement, especially with more negotiations scheduled in Oman the following Sunday. However, during a follow-up call on Thursday, Netanyahu informed Trump that the attack would proceed—and Trump, who often calls himself the most pro-Israel president in U.S. history, chose not to intervene.
“We knew everything,” Trump told Reuters this week.
“I tried very hard to spare Iran from humiliation and destruction. I really hoped a deal could be reached.”
Another crucial factor behind Netanyahu’s decision to go to war with Iran was the dramatic shift in the Middle Eastern landscape—changes that had largely worked in Israel’s favor. Since October 7, 2023, Israel’s intense military campaign against Hamas, followed by a war with Hezbollah the following September, significantly weakened both groups, eliminating many of their senior leaders and their successors.
Then, in December, the collapse of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime dealt a major blow to Iran by removing a key regional ally and severing a vital weapons supply route to Hezbollah. At the same time, Iran’s close partner Russia was already heavily engaged in its war with Ukraine and saw its influence in the region diminish further with Assad’s downfall.
Of Iran’s allied groups, only the Houthis took action. Last Sunday, they claimed to have launched two missiles at Jaffa in coordination with Iran, though the Israeli military reported no evidence of any rockets fired from Yemen.
Commenting on the state of Iran’s so-called “axis of resistance,” Andreas Krieg, a military analyst at King’s College London, told the Associated Press this week: “It’s no longer a cohesive axis. It’s more of a fragmented network, with each group now focused mainly on its own survival.
Around 3 a.m. last Friday, Israel launched a surprise assault involving 200 aircraft that struck Iranian nuclear sites, air defense systems, missile bases, and targeted senior military officials and nuclear scientists. Among those killed were the head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps and the country’s top military commander.
In announcing the operation, Prime Minister Netanyahu claimed that Iran possessed enough enriched uranium to build up to nine nuclear bombs, potentially within just a few months. He has issued similar warnings in the past: in 2012, he famously held up a cartoon-style bomb illustration at the UN General Assembly, warning that Iran could be a year away from building a nuclear weapon; in 2015, he told the U.S. Congress that such a weapon could be only weeks away. Although Israel is widely believed to have its own nuclear arsenal, it has never officially acknowledged it.
Experts in nuclear proliferation say Iran has made steady progress toward developing a nuclear weapon and is now considered a “threshold state,” meaning it has the technical capability to build one if it makes the political decision to do so.
“Iran is the only non-nuclear-weapon state in the world currently producing and stockpiling uranium enriched to 60%—this remains a serious concern,” the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) stated in a report released last week.
Miles Pomper, a nuclear non-proliferation expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, explained that while Iran could produce enough weapons-grade uranium for several bombs in a matter of days or weeks, turning that material into an actual nuclear weapon would take “probably more than a month, but less than a year.”
“Iran clearly wants to keep the option of developing a nuclear weapon open and is working to make that option viable,” he told The Saturday Paper. “Whether Iran had made the decision or was on the verge of doing so before the attack—those are still unknowns. Ultimately, it comes down to how much risk you’re willing to tolerate.”
Back in March, U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told Congress that Iran was not believed to be actively developing a nuclear weapon. When asked on Tuesday to respond to her assessment, Donald Trump dismissed it bluntly: “I don’t care what she said.
As Israel’s military dominance became evident this week, Donald Trump shifted from a stance of hesitation to increasingly vocal support for Prime Minister Netanyahu’s decision to strike. On Monday, he left the G7 summit in Canada ahead of schedule, telling reporters aboard Air Force One that he wanted a “real end” to the conflict. He later escalated his rhetoric, calling for Iran’s unconditional surrender.
Israel initially anticipated the war would last about two weeks—but if the U.S. enters the conflict, the dynamics would shift dramatically. It would effectively become Trump’s war. American involvement could trigger Iranian strikes on U.S. bases across the Middle East, which would likely provoke a massive U.S. response. The outcome could go in either direction: a swift and crushing defeat for Tehran might drive the regime to double down on pursuing nuclear weapons, or it could intensify internal pressure on Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, leading to unrest and potential political change.
If Trump’s stance reflects the sweeping transformations already underway in the region, his next move could reshape it even further.
“I might do it, I might not,” he told reporters on Wednesday. “Honestly, no one knows what I’m going to decide.”
