GENERAL JACOB NAGEL: Why Israel’s failure to strike back at Iran could lead to NUCLEAR WAR – and the three targets the Jewish State should hit right now… starting with Tehran’s nuke weapons lair buried under a mountain

There is no going back to the days before October 7, 2023 – for Hamas stormed across Israel’s borders to murder, rape, mutilate and kidnap innocent civilians.

There is also no return to a time before April 13, 2024.

The world changed irrevocably on Saturday when Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, unleashed a direct attack on the Jewish state from Iranian soil for the first time.

Israel has now proven the superiority of its missile defense systems in the most important way yet by intercepting more than 95 percent of the hundreds of armed drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles launched by Tehran.

However, pride in this technological wizardry should not lull Israel or its allies into a false sense of security or diminish the seriousness of this change in the cruel rules of the Middle East.

Make no mistake: the threat to Israel’s survival today is greater than ever before.

For decades, Tehran acted as the head of a terrorist octopus, lashing out with long tentacles at its Western enemies in the form of proxy armies deployed in a ring of fire around Israel (Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and militias in Yemen, Syria and Iraq).

But these new attacks raise the stakes dramatically.

Iran’s strike came in response to an Israeli air force strike in Damascus earlier this month that killed Mohammad Reza Zahedi, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force in Syria and Lebanon.

Zahedi was a big fish. He has been responsible for numerous terrorist attacks on Israel and took part in an Iranian-backed militia attack in January that killed three U.S. troops in Jordan.

There is also evidence that he took part in the planning and execution of the October 7 attacks – and at the time of his murder, Zahedi was planning other terror plots.

Israel acted well within the rules of its dangerous neighborhood by eliminating him. But the ayatollah responded with a potentially catastrophic barrage on Israeli civilians, military bases and government facilities.

If Iran walks away from this point without paying a high price, Tehran may gain the courage to use its weapons again. And next time, these drones and missiles could be armed with nuclear or chemical payloads.

Yet some today argue that Israel’s response should reflect the actual damage, not the potential destruction, caused by the Iranian attack.

Only a few of Iran’s deadly drones and missiles have actually penetrated Israel’s ‘Iron Curtain’ of incredible air defenses, and those that did caused hardly any significant damage or causality, apart from seriously injuring a seven-year-old Israeli Bedouin girl who is still in prison. in the hospital.

‘You won. Get the victory,” President Biden reportedly advised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he warned that the US would not support an Israeli counterattack on Iran.

It would be a mistake if Israel took Biden’s advice to heart.

The concept of “deterrence through denial,” in which Israel uses its military and technology to limit the costs of attacks on its citizens, is a fatally flawed strategy.

“Deterrence through denial” backfired spectacularly on October 7, when Israel failed to foresee and thwart Hamas’ attack.

Israel must now adopt a doctrine of “deterrence by punishment,” imposing disproportionate costs on its enemies, and focus its response on a few priority targets.

The Israeli military could destroy the weapons deployed against them, including unspecified aircraft development and production factories, as well as Iran’s cruise missile and drone storage facilities.

Israel could also hit Iranian ports, oil and gas refineries, pipelines and other infrastructure that finance the regime.

Other objectives can be leadership assets. Such attacks have the added deterrent effect of demonstrating the long arm of Israel’s intelligence and military capabilities.

But the Israeli military’s main strategic target should be Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

Israeli attention, which has focused in recent decades on slowing Tehran’s progress in nuclear fuel production, must now shift to neutralizing Iran’s nuclear scientists and their ability to build a real weapon .

Currently, Tehran is building a new heavily fortified facility near Natanz in central Iran, which is reportedly designed to extend more than 100 meters underground and is buried beneath a mountain.

It is here that Iran could develop an enrichment facility powered by advanced centrifuges capable of producing multiple nuclear weapons without detection.

If completed, the Natanz facility could be impervious to Israeli and even American bombs.

Although, in contrast to Israel’s “deterrence by punishment,” President Biden will dangle new arms sales, political support and continued intelligence and defense cooperation to Netanyahu in exchange for calm in the Middle East before the November elections.

Biden’s thinking is currently focused on the short term.

His political advisers don’t want to risk a widening conflict that threatens the flow of oil supplies and raises domestic gas prices, or gives Biden the impression that he is a worthless observer of an international crisis.

Israel must think long term.

Biden’s supposedly steadfast support for Israel after October 7 has waned as he faced political pressure from his party’s far left. There is no reason why Biden’s will won’t weaken again.

Israel’s enemies will also interpret the lack of a meaningful response as weakness and capitulation to American demands. This will immediately affect their behavior in Gaza, Lebanon and the West Bank and reduce the chances of Hamas releasing its hostages.

After this weekend, the threat of a nuclear weapon deployed from Iran towards Israel is one step closer to reality.

Israel must decide the nature and timing of its response, but must inflict serious damage on Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his regime to restore Israeli deterrence.

Brig. General (res.) Jacob Nagel is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and professor at Technion. He was National Security Advisor to Prime Minister Netanyahu and acting head of the National Security Council. Mark Dubowitz is the CEO of FDD and an expert on Iran’s nuclear program and sanctions. In 2019, he was sanctioned by Iran.