AI
Friday, June 13, 2025 9:40:45 PM
Israel seized an opening to strike. The hard part may be closing it.
As the U.S. and Iran jockeyed, Benjamin Netanyahu decided this week that he couldn’t wait any longer.
Updated
June 13, 2025 at 7:35 p.m. EDTtoday at 7:35 p.m. EDT
David Ignatius
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/06/13/israel-iran-attack-nuclear-sites/
The Israeli air defense system fires to intercept missiles over Tel Aviv on Friday. (Leo Correa/AP)
Israel struck decisively Friday at what its leaders have called “the head of the snake” — assassinating senior Iranian military commanders and scientists who helped direct Tehran’s nuclear program and proxy forces, along with an array of other military targets. In its first hours, this appeared to have been conceived as a “decapitation” strike, much like Israel’s devastating attack last fall against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
But this snake is hard to kill. Especially when President Donald Trump, the leader of Israel’s closest ally, has been playing the role of snake charmer. “I gave Iran chance after chance to make a deal,” he said Friday, warning Iranian leaders that there was “much more to come” from Israel — and then in the same social media post imploring them to “make a deal, before there is nothing left, and save what was once known as the Iranian Empire.”
Trump’s diplomatic opening to Iran, leveraged by Israel’s overwhelming military force, is among the most ambitious moves of his presidency. But given the covert tools Iran has at its disposal for retaliation — especially through its links to al-Qaeda operatives in Yemen and Afghanistan — Trump should remind himself that he needs to move with care. Misjudging Iran could have catastrophic consequences.
Israel hunkered down Friday for Iranian retaliatory attacks, which began with a 100-drone assault. The response escalated just after 9 p.m. Israeli time, with what reporters on the scene said were some 100 Iranian ballistic missiles. The two sides kept firing through the night, with scores of casualties in both countries and a slide toward all-out war.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must hope that the assault that began on Friday, and that could last days, will be the conclusive campaign in the war that began when Iranian-backed Hamas terrorists surged across the Gaza fence on Oct. 7, 2023. It’s likely Netanyahu chose to act now because he believed Iran would never again be so vulnerable — and perhaps also because he wanted to derail a Trump diplomatic bid that he mistrusts.
The wild card in this conflict is that the United States, Israel’s superpower ally, is for now standing on the sidelines. Rarely has a U.S. secretary of state made such a cold-blooded statement of nonalignment as Marco Rubio’s in the opening hours of the attack: “We are not involved in strikes against Iran and our top priority is protecting American forces in the region.” As Iranian retaliation escalates, it’s hard to imagine Trump resisting what will be growing political pressure to intervene on Israel’s behalf, and by late Friday, Axios reported that the U.S. military was assisting Israel in unspecified ways.
Trump and Netanyahu diverged soon after Trump was inaugurated. Netanyahu went to Washington in February hoping to get Trump’s backing for a bombing campaign against Iranian nuclear facilities. But Trump balked, and in an Oval Office meeting in April, with Netanyahu sitting uncomfortably next to him, Trump announced that he was opening negotiations with Tehran.
The result has been a three-way game of chicken in recent weeks — as Israel threatened war with Iran while America coaxed it toward peace. Israel seemed threatened as much by Trump’s diplomacy as by Iran’s missiles. Netanyahu decided this week that he couldn’t wait any longer.
Israel mounted a brilliant, stealthy assault Friday. Using pre-positioned drones and other weapons, it struck precisely in the predawn darkness at the homes of Mohammad Bagheri, the Iranian military chief of staff, and three other top generals. Israel also reportedly assassinated two top nuclear scientists. Video footage from Tehran confirmed the precision of the attacks — showing one floor of an apartment building hit, for example, but not the others.
Mossad has created a drone base in the heart of Tehran, said Amit Segal, a well-sourced Israeli journalist. He noted that Israel placed these in-country weapons next to antiaircraft complexes and on special roving vehicles so that they could disable Iranian defenses just as the assault began.
Israel reportedly used more than 200 fighter jets, striking in several waves. Israel hit the Iranian nuclear facilities at Natanz, Isfahan and Fordow, according to the IAEA. The extent of the attack suggests that Israel had, as it boasted, largely destroyed Iranian air defenses in its raid in October and in Friday’s finishing round. By Friday, Iran appeared as vulnerable as Gaza to Israeli air attack.
Until last fall, Iran’s main deterrent force had been Hezbollah’s enormous rocket arsenal in Lebanon. That has now been largely neutered by Israeli strikes, and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun vowed Friday to stay out of the conflict.
But Iran has other means to hit back. One that has received little attention is its relationship with al-Qaeda affiliates. According to former U.S. counterterrorism officials, Tehran has built good relations with the new de facto al-Qaeda “emir,” Saif al-Adel, who took over in 2023 after Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed. These former officials say Adel helped manage WMD planning for Osama bin Laden.
The al-Qaeda affiliate in Yemen might pose a special danger. It’s headed by Saad bin Atef al-Awlaki, who posted a chilling video this month threatening U.S. officials. “Go after the scum of the earth and its greatest criminals,” he urged his followers, naming Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and former DOGE chief Elon Musk. “There are no red lines after all that has been happening to our people in Gaza,” he said. According to the Jerusalem Post, Awlaki urged Muslims in Europe and America to make sure there is “not a single safe place” for Jews.
Israel’s tactical mastery is unquestioned. But in this latest assault on Iran — as in earlier campaigns in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen — Israel appears to have given relatively little thought to “the day after.” Does Israel seek regime change in Iran, to permanently bend Iran away from its revolutionary course? That seemed to be Netanyahu’s message in a Friday night televised pitch to the Iranian people. “This is your opportunity to stand up and let your voices be heard,” he said. But there is a danger of overreach. Netanyahu may have to settle for a strike that will neuter the Iranian nuclear threat for a few more years but set up a future conflagration.
The same could be said for Trump’s diplomacy. Does he mean to end the cold war with Iran that began with the 1979 revolution and the habitual chant “Death to America”? Or will his vow to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon draw America deeper into the cycle of attack and retaliation? As many decades have taught the United States and Israel both, conflicts with Iran are easy to start and hard to end.
As the U.S. and Iran jockeyed, Benjamin Netanyahu decided this week that he couldn’t wait any longer.
Updated
June 13, 2025 at 7:35 p.m. EDTtoday at 7:35 p.m. EDT
David Ignatius
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/06/13/israel-iran-attack-nuclear-sites/
The Israeli air defense system fires to intercept missiles over Tel Aviv on Friday. (Leo Correa/AP)
Israel struck decisively Friday at what its leaders have called “the head of the snake” — assassinating senior Iranian military commanders and scientists who helped direct Tehran’s nuclear program and proxy forces, along with an array of other military targets. In its first hours, this appeared to have been conceived as a “decapitation” strike, much like Israel’s devastating attack last fall against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
But this snake is hard to kill. Especially when President Donald Trump, the leader of Israel’s closest ally, has been playing the role of snake charmer. “I gave Iran chance after chance to make a deal,” he said Friday, warning Iranian leaders that there was “much more to come” from Israel — and then in the same social media post imploring them to “make a deal, before there is nothing left, and save what was once known as the Iranian Empire.”
Trump’s diplomatic opening to Iran, leveraged by Israel’s overwhelming military force, is among the most ambitious moves of his presidency. But given the covert tools Iran has at its disposal for retaliation — especially through its links to al-Qaeda operatives in Yemen and Afghanistan — Trump should remind himself that he needs to move with care. Misjudging Iran could have catastrophic consequences.
Israel hunkered down Friday for Iranian retaliatory attacks, which began with a 100-drone assault. The response escalated just after 9 p.m. Israeli time, with what reporters on the scene said were some 100 Iranian ballistic missiles. The two sides kept firing through the night, with scores of casualties in both countries and a slide toward all-out war.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must hope that the assault that began on Friday, and that could last days, will be the conclusive campaign in the war that began when Iranian-backed Hamas terrorists surged across the Gaza fence on Oct. 7, 2023. It’s likely Netanyahu chose to act now because he believed Iran would never again be so vulnerable — and perhaps also because he wanted to derail a Trump diplomatic bid that he mistrusts.
The wild card in this conflict is that the United States, Israel’s superpower ally, is for now standing on the sidelines. Rarely has a U.S. secretary of state made such a cold-blooded statement of nonalignment as Marco Rubio’s in the opening hours of the attack: “We are not involved in strikes against Iran and our top priority is protecting American forces in the region.” As Iranian retaliation escalates, it’s hard to imagine Trump resisting what will be growing political pressure to intervene on Israel’s behalf, and by late Friday, Axios reported that the U.S. military was assisting Israel in unspecified ways.
Trump and Netanyahu diverged soon after Trump was inaugurated. Netanyahu went to Washington in February hoping to get Trump’s backing for a bombing campaign against Iranian nuclear facilities. But Trump balked, and in an Oval Office meeting in April, with Netanyahu sitting uncomfortably next to him, Trump announced that he was opening negotiations with Tehran.
The result has been a three-way game of chicken in recent weeks — as Israel threatened war with Iran while America coaxed it toward peace. Israel seemed threatened as much by Trump’s diplomacy as by Iran’s missiles. Netanyahu decided this week that he couldn’t wait any longer.
Israel mounted a brilliant, stealthy assault Friday. Using pre-positioned drones and other weapons, it struck precisely in the predawn darkness at the homes of Mohammad Bagheri, the Iranian military chief of staff, and three other top generals. Israel also reportedly assassinated two top nuclear scientists. Video footage from Tehran confirmed the precision of the attacks — showing one floor of an apartment building hit, for example, but not the others.
Mossad has created a drone base in the heart of Tehran, said Amit Segal, a well-sourced Israeli journalist. He noted that Israel placed these in-country weapons next to antiaircraft complexes and on special roving vehicles so that they could disable Iranian defenses just as the assault began.
Israel reportedly used more than 200 fighter jets, striking in several waves. Israel hit the Iranian nuclear facilities at Natanz, Isfahan and Fordow, according to the IAEA. The extent of the attack suggests that Israel had, as it boasted, largely destroyed Iranian air defenses in its raid in October and in Friday’s finishing round. By Friday, Iran appeared as vulnerable as Gaza to Israeli air attack.
Until last fall, Iran’s main deterrent force had been Hezbollah’s enormous rocket arsenal in Lebanon. That has now been largely neutered by Israeli strikes, and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun vowed Friday to stay out of the conflict.
But Iran has other means to hit back. One that has received little attention is its relationship with al-Qaeda affiliates. According to former U.S. counterterrorism officials, Tehran has built good relations with the new de facto al-Qaeda “emir,” Saif al-Adel, who took over in 2023 after Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed. These former officials say Adel helped manage WMD planning for Osama bin Laden.
The al-Qaeda affiliate in Yemen might pose a special danger. It’s headed by Saad bin Atef al-Awlaki, who posted a chilling video this month threatening U.S. officials. “Go after the scum of the earth and its greatest criminals,” he urged his followers, naming Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and former DOGE chief Elon Musk. “There are no red lines after all that has been happening to our people in Gaza,” he said. According to the Jerusalem Post, Awlaki urged Muslims in Europe and America to make sure there is “not a single safe place” for Jews.
Israel’s tactical mastery is unquestioned. But in this latest assault on Iran — as in earlier campaigns in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen — Israel appears to have given relatively little thought to “the day after.” Does Israel seek regime change in Iran, to permanently bend Iran away from its revolutionary course? That seemed to be Netanyahu’s message in a Friday night televised pitch to the Iranian people. “This is your opportunity to stand up and let your voices be heard,” he said. But there is a danger of overreach. Netanyahu may have to settle for a strike that will neuter the Iranian nuclear threat for a few more years but set up a future conflagration.
The same could be said for Trump’s diplomacy. Does he mean to end the cold war with Iran that began with the 1979 revolution and the habitual chant “Death to America”? Or will his vow to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon draw America deeper into the cycle of attack and retaliation? As many decades have taught the United States and Israel both, conflicts with Iran are easy to start and hard to end.
Unleash the power of Level 2
Spot liquidity moves with access to US order books.
