How would the US handle a nuclear Iran?
Summary
Israel’s strikes expose the limits of Tehran’s ability to compete in conventional combat.
Ali Khamenei, supreme leader of Iran, has had a bad week. Elon Musk’s X suspended his new Hebrew-language account, and the Israel Defense Forces unleashed a devastating series of air raids against his country’s military infrastructure. Given the disparity between Iran’s capabilities and Israel’s, the beleaguered ayatollah doesn’t have many good options for a counterstrike.
Israel’s prime minister, on the other hand, has had a good week. Benjamin Netanyahu pleased both his American and Gulf Arab allies by refraining from attacks on Iran’s nuclear sites and oil refineries. But deterrence was restored. Israeli warplanes didn’t only cripple Iran’s air-defense systems and inflict painful blows on its missile-producing facilities. They also sent a message that Israel knows where Tehran’s strategic vulnerabilities are, and it can destroy them any time it wants.
After a tough year, Team Biden can breathe a sigh of relief. The American elections won’t take place against the backdrop of a global energy crisis or U.S. engagement in a Middle East war.
The strikes underlined a key point about the Middle East power balance that has been true since the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Military forces that have access to American military technology and intelligence-gathering capabilities can wipe the floor with militaries that rely on Moscow. Russian military equipment has its uses, but American technology remains the gold standard in the world of defense—even more so for a country such as Israel that has significant intelligence and technological capabilities.
This fact has been the foundation for whatever peace and stability the Middle East has known since Henry Kissinger served as secretary of state. But military power can do only so much. Unless it is deployed in the service of an achievable political program, as Napoleon learned to his cost, even a series of victorious wars won’t win you peace.
Despite its spectacular headline achievements, Israel has a long way to go in this war. The fighting in Gaza has gone on much longer and has been far bloodier than Israel hoped, and Hezbollah is stubbornly resisting in the north. A long war in Lebanon won’t be good for Israel’s economy or its world image, and a future of endless counterterrorist operations in Gaza wouldn’t be ideal. Iran’s strategy of advancing its regional agenda by mobilizing proxies that threaten both Israel and the Gulf Arabs has been tested but not broken by the fighting so far.
As long as the Islamic Republic of Iran remains a serious and implacably anti-Israel contender for hegemony across the Middle East, Jerusalem must fight on the fronts and at the times of Iran’s choosing. Worse, Israel needs American help in any long war with Iran. That’s a big problem. Whether Kamala Harris or Donald Trump wins next week’s presidential election, the U.S. in 2025 will likely be more interested in avoiding a war in the Middle East than helping Israel deal with the mullahs once and for all.
Israel’s ability to strike Iran and its allies essentially with impunity has weakened Iran’s allies, degraded its military strength, and damaged the regime’s prestige. There are two key questions now. Will Tehran turn to a nuclear breakout to compensate for the inferiority of its conventional weapons? If it does, will the fear of an Iranian nuclear weapon be enough to lead Washington to support Israel even at the risk of Washington’s engagement in another war?
The nuclear breakout option seems easier for Tehran to accomplish and more strategically compelling than ever before. Iran’s pursuit of initiatives from uranium enrichment to bomb design and missile production has brought Tehran to the brink of true nuclear capability. And Israel’s extraordinary strikes against Iran and its proxies demonstrate the limits of Iran’s ability to compete in the nonnuclear field.
What America would do about a nuclearizing Iran is a complicated matter. Very few people in the U.S. want another Middle East war. Yet without American help, it is possible that Israel’s only military option against the heavily fortified, regionally dispersed and deeply dug-in Iranian nuclear program would involve Israel’s use of nuclear weapons. Would Israel threaten the use of nuclear weapons against Iran as a last resort if Washington won’t help Israel block the program by conventional means? And would that threat, implicit or overt, be enough to overcome any reluctance in Washington to help Israel dismantle the nuclear sites using conventional weapons?
As I’ve written before, 2025 is going to be an interesting year.
