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Biden must unleash Israel America has appeased Iran for too long

The Israelis have already showed their might in Lebanon (Photo by Ugur Yildirim/ dia images via Getty Images)

The Israelis have already showed their might in Lebanon (Photo by Ugur Yildirim/ dia images via Getty Images)


October 8, 2024   4 mins

Having been attacked by almost 200 ballistic missiles launched by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and each the size of a tanker truck Israel must now decide how to respond. Whatever happens, one thing is obvious: the Jewish State’s reaction won’t equal Iran’s attack. 

That is true both in terms of scale, which was vast and could have killed 20,000 Israelis, were it not for the advanced Arrow interceptors, and in its very meagre results. A Gazan Palestinian died in the West Bank, and debris from intercepted missiles caused widespread but only superficial damage to civilian houses and airforce bases. Certainly, Israel will not dispatch its pilots all the way to Iran without destroying targets that materially weaken the Islamic Republic’s military capabilities. 

Not that Israel can act alone in choosing its targets. For while the US fully accepts that Netanyahu must respond for the sake of deterrence, the Biden Administration is equally reluctant to give the IDF carte blanche. For one thing, the White House doesn’t want Israel to attack Iran’s nuclear installations. Even now, those officials who run Biden’s foreign policy cling to their dream of reconciliation with Tehran, believing that all would now be well if only Trump had stuck by the nuclear agreement negotiated by Obama, their former boss. 

To persist in that fantasy, of course, they’re obliged to ignore what Iran did with all the oil money it gained after US sanctions were lifted: the great build-up of Hezbollah, the Houthis and the other Shi’a militias; the large-scale importation of missile components from North Korea and China; and the growth of the Revolutionary Guard.

It’s clear, then, that Iran’s rulers were never interested in making peace with Washington. Nor, indeed, could they do so without losing power to the secular opposition now bitterly hostile to the Ayatollah’s rule. Still, because of the persistence of the Obama delusion, Israel is forbidden from attacking the Natanz centrifuge complex, where Iran enriches its uranium to weapons-grade levels. The Isfahan uranium hexafluoride plant, whose destruction would release highly corrosive radioactive gases, is also out of bounds, as is the Fordow centrifuge hall — deep inside a mountain and safe from bombs, but which could nonetheless be wrecked by air-to-ground missiles.

If the nuclear installations cannot be attacked, there is still the Khark Island oil terminal that delivers most of Iran’s exported oil, and which provides the foreign currency that Iran uses to import missile parts and pay its Shi’a proxies. Hezbollah, which even under Israeli bombardment relies on Iranian paychecks, is the most obvious example. But there’s also the Iraqi Kataeb militia, as well as the Houthis in western Yemen. Quite apart from the threat they pose to Israel, that last group has successfully disrupted much of the Mediterranean’s trade with Asia, even as European navies have sat back and watched. 

“If the nuclear installations cannot be attacked, there is still the Khark Island oil terminal that delivers most of Iran’s exported oil”

Beyond immediately weakening the militias if unpaid, their men must find work elsewhere bombing the Khark terminal would also accelerate Iran’s catastrophic inflation. Right now, it takes 42,105 rials to buy one dollar, up from 70 rials when the Islamic Republic was founded in 1979. That, in turn, would further increase opposition to the regime. After all, millions of salaried employees in Tehran already cannot afford proper meals for two weeks of every month, as modest salary increases are immediately outpaced by bewildering jumps in prices.  

Yet whatever the tactical and strategic advantages of destroying the Khark terminal platform, Biden officials oppose that too. Why? In essence, because they’ve been spooked by Iran’s not-so-veiled threat to bomb Saudi Arabia’s gigantic terminal at Ras Tanura. Handling over 15% of the world’s total oil supply, any disruption here would disrupt the world economy at a stroke.

But Saudi Arabia is not Israel, nor is it Israel’s ally. There’s therefore no earthly justification for Iran’s threat, beyond an outrageous attempt at blackmail by a regime tripped up by its own boastful propaganda. Even now, Iranian radio and television channels claim that 90% of the ballistic and hypersonic missiles launched at the “Occupied Territories” (their dismissive term for Israel) successfully struck their targets. Among other things, the Revolutionary Guards claimed a direct hit on the Mossad headquarters just north of Tel Aviv, which they said were “completely destroyed”. That in itself shows the regime is rattled: its propaganda lies might be just about plausible to the people of Iran, but anyone who actually drove past Mossad’s building could see it’s perfectly intact.

Having sailed too close to the wind by attacking Israel with hundreds of missiles — notably the Fattah-1 variety, which reach hypersonic speeds and are devilishly hard to intercept — Iran’s rulers are now desperate to avoid the consequences of their actions. In so doing, they’re threatening their own Saudi neighbours, with whom they recently reconciled after years of tension. After years of indulgence, the Biden Administration must finally stand up for US and Western interests. It must make it perfectly plain that an Iranian attack on the Saudis, or indeed any other Arab oil terminal, will result in massive retaliation. Nor can this be an idle threat: each US Air Force’s B52, taking off from Diego Garcia, could drop some 70,000 pounds of bombs anywhere in Iran.

To issue such a threat would certainly be an abrupt reversal after years of appeasement, and would not be an easy pivot for an ageing president at the end of his term. But the alternative would be to surrender to Iran’s blackmail, a decision that would soon destroy American power across the Middle East. Israel, fighting for its basic security and under attack by Iranian proxies to its north, east and south, is bound to act decisively and will not be stopped. So it is Iran that must finally be deterred from further destabilising the region and the global economy at large.         


Professor Edward Luttwak is a strategist and historian known for his works on grand strategy, geoeconomics, military history, and international relations.

ELuttwak

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D Walsh
D Walsh
25 days ago

No mater how many people they murder, the neocon thirst for blood will never be quenched

Dave Canuck
Dave Canuck
25 days ago
Reply to  D Walsh

Well they are fully invested in the military industrial complex and arms trade. They need to generate continuous sales and keep forever wars going

B Emery
B Emery
24 days ago
Reply to  Dave Canuck

They aren’t actually terribly good at it at the moment. The neocons are very bad at war and the left wing are very bad at brokering peace. The un doesn’t work terribly well, so they will have to get much better at being an mic or much better at talking in the un, quite quickly.

Michael Cazaly
Michael Cazaly
25 days ago

The theory behind this nonsense is that the current Iranian rulers will be toppled by a revolution of “the people” against them.
It didn’t work with the US promoted Iraq- Iran war, quite the reverse. There’s no reason to believe it will work this time…
And if the Iranian missiles are so ineffective what’s the point? Let them use up their missiles and prove they are worthless, but expensive.

Jim C
Jim C
25 days ago
Reply to  Michael Cazaly

Neocons are desperate for the US to go to war with Israel’s enemies.

Worked out so well for Libya…

Norfolk Sceptic
Norfolk Sceptic
25 days ago
Reply to  Jim C

But it did for the Military Industrial Complex.

Matt Hindman
Matt Hindman
25 days ago

I don’t think choosing your battles is a bad idea. Israel is not only engaged in a shooting war with Hamas but they are also engaged against Hezbollah. Starting an open war with Iran is a dangerous move considering how many troops and resources they already have tied up. The last thing Israel needs is overconfidence if they are not there already.

Terry M
Terry M
25 days ago
Reply to  Matt Hindman

Exactly. Israel should bide its time, eliminate a few mid-level Iranian government apparatchiks and mullahs, and damage some infrastructure, but not the oil terminals. No point in opening a 3rd front while Lebanon is sucking up so many Israeli resources. When Trump takes office he will re-install sanctions on Iran that will strangle their economy and maybe knock off a few high level mullah/terrorists.

Dumetrius
Dumetrius
25 days ago
Reply to  Terry M

That seems a better tactic. Clearly lifting sanctions just enabled the ramping-up of support to Iran’s proxies. Which the current regime has to do to retain a support base & distinguish itself from the opposition.

May be more sense in making the Iranian regime look stupid and incapable of defending its even its own.

Attacking Kharg Island seems too risky – although the oil mainly goes to China, the US and China are still so interlinked that a slump in the Chinese economy will hurt the US.

Jürg Gassmann
Jürg Gassmann
24 days ago
Reply to  Dumetrius

I’d go a step further – the Gulf oil is so important to China that China has an existential interest in keeping it flowing.
Luttwak mentions bombers stationed in Diego Garcia. They’d have to cross the northern Indian Ocean to get to Iran.
For the past years, the Iranian, Russian and Chinese navies have held joint drills in the northern Indian Ocean. What might the assumed threat scenarios for those drills might have been?

Janko M
Janko M
25 days ago

Professor Luttwak has yet to find a regime he did not wish to change.

Others’ kids will do it of course.

Edit: I am not sure what the end goal here is, but I would expect that sustained escalation is not a risk taken so lightly. You don’t have to have a particularly high opinion of the regime in Iran to conclude that a major regional conflagration would make a WW3 likely, with profoundly uncertain outcomes.

Jim C
Jim C
25 days ago
Reply to  Janko M

It’s now clear that if they bomb Iran’s nuclear and energy facilities, Iran can return the favour.

Not sure how well Israel will fair with its own centrifuge plants leaking “highly corrosive” uranium hexaflouride, its oil terminals and pipelines burning, its desalination facilities blown to smithereens.

Luttwack should be careful what he wishes for. And if he thinks B52s will overfly Iran without being shot down, he clearly doesn’t know much.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
25 days ago
Reply to  Jim C

Iran has waged war against Israel for years, as a way to distract those living under the theocratic dictatorship of the reality. If Iran could have attacked Israel srrafically it would have.
If Obama, Biden and Harris had not subsidized Iran with many billions in aid the Iranian dictators would have been hanging from lampposts a long time ago.
Biden will do nothing and hope that democrats can steal another election and install Harris. Then they continue to enable imperialist Iran.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
25 days ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

Bravo Bravo

Dumetrius
Dumetrius
25 days ago
Reply to  Jim C

Israel is not a significant oil producer tho.

And the Iranian missile attack clearly involves masses of missiles. It’s not particularly accurate, even if it scores a few hits and close misses.

That strategy has a weakness – older missiles contribute to bulking out the volume of the attack but the replacements will likely be current generation missiles, which are very expensive . . . an issue that affects Iran as it does all participants, even the US.

Giles Toman
Giles Toman
25 days ago
Reply to  Jim C

B2 could, easily.

Pedro the Exile
Pedro the Exile
25 days ago
Reply to  Janko M

would make a WW3 likely,
How so?Neither China nor Russia are in any hurrry to join in a regional war in the Middle East-who’se left for a”world war”?

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
25 days ago

Who cares about some Archduke bring gunned down in some Balkan obscure city…

John Tyler
John Tyler
25 days ago
Reply to  Janko M

I’m not clear why it’s escalation’ when carried out by democracies, but not when committed by autocracies or theocracies.

Edwin Blake
Edwin Blake
25 days ago

I love how the US/Israeli propaganda holds that Iran couldn’t have hit their targets because thousands of civilians weren’t killed. Talk about confession by projection.

There is plenty of evidence that Iran hit exactly what their intended targets were, military bases and Mossad headquarters. Not civilians! These people really do think that their censorship of alternative news sources is complete.

Mossad headquarters is surrounded by Israeli human shields, to use the US-backed IDF’s favourite expression, in the middle of Tel-Aviv.

Based on the Wall Street Journal, the Cradle from Lebanon is reporting on the accuracy of the Iranian missile strikes (search for ” Iranian missiles ‘overwhelmed’ Israel’s air defenses: Report”).

The Grayzone actually investigated the ground truth of this and have footage from Bedouin living near one of the bases (“On the ground investigating Iran’s strikes on Israel”) and evidence of an explosion near the Mossad headquarters, they can’t get to the headquarters themselves.

Imagine if BBC or other news services actually did some real reporting.

The point being that the US-backed IDF would be quite stupid taking on the Iranians.

A D Kent
A D Kent
25 days ago
Reply to  Edwin Blake

Absolutely true Edwin – and the idea that the Israeli jets could just waltz across to Tehran without cost is preposterous too (see my other comment here if it doesn’t disappear). The idea that the lumbering B52s would do so unhindered is similarly wishful too

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
25 days ago
Reply to  A D Kent

So you love theocratic dictatorships with impperial and genocidal goals that keeps their own citizens enslaved. And apparently love seeing Jews imperiled and killed. Thank you for sharing.

D Walsh
D Walsh
25 days ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

He never said anything like that, what the hell is wrong with you

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
25 days ago
Reply to  D Walsh

Why yes he did.

A D Kent
A D Kent
25 days ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

The thing that’s endangering jews in Israel is their desperate regime – sure it’s nominally democratic – but it’s very much theocratic in it’s own, twisted, way. Even if it were a land of milk and honey and loveliness, it still wouldn’t make it any safer against the Iranians missiles or it’s lands anymore habitable once the Dimona plant takes a few ballistic hits. We may not wish to be where we are, but we have to live in the real world and not your idealist fantasy one.

Terry M
Terry M
25 days ago
Reply to  Edwin Blake

Edwin, thanks for the links to the photos and videos showing the extensive damage in Israel. I would have beleived the media if you had not included those.
[note: his references do not support significant damage of Israel]

Daniel Chalkin
Daniel Chalkin
25 days ago
Reply to  Edwin Blake

Foolishly choosing to engage with this. A family member works opposite the Mossad HQ (which incidentally sits next to a shopping centre, not on top of or underneath residential buildings like with Israel’s opponents, nor is it in the centre of Tel Aviv – that’s the IDF HQ and like the MOD it sits amongst commercial and residential buildings). It’s still standing, the explosion was about 200m from the site. There is plenty of satellite footage showing the damage to the airbases but it is minimal and easily repaired and no equipment was lost. In addition, every missile targeted at Dimona was shot down.

The point of me engaging with this stupid comment is to show it up for the anti-Israel propaganda that it is. The air defense system worked as intended. Non-civilian targets were protected and rockets that were going to land in open areas were allowed through. It isn’t perfect; a school was hit and I’ve got a picture of fusalage landing in someone’s back yard, meters from their house (an Arab house, in case you’re interested).

And the reason no civilians were killed bar one man was that they were huddled in bomb shelters, a luxury other nations don’t seem to provide.

Further point, last week the IAF cleared an air corridor to Iran by taking out the air defense capabilities along southern Syria. The Iranian airforce cannot match the IAF or the USAF (F-4s make up the majority of the airforce which was last manufactured in 1981) and the S400 system has been shown to be almost totally inadequate, so the assertion that any strike would be stupid is flawed. I wouldn’t agree with a strike, but it can certainly be done.

Edwin Blake
Edwin Blake
24 days ago
Reply to  Daniel Chalkin

Thanks for engaging with facts.

Danny Kaye
Danny Kaye
24 days ago
Reply to  Edwin Blake

The Mossad HQ sits in splendid isolation on the side of a highway north of Tel Aviv. The surrounding “Israeli human shields” are a few km away at the closest. That they still are in danger is due to the low accuracy of Iran’s missiles. One of them caused damage to a restaurant near the beach, a few km from the Mossad. That was the closest and the most damage Iran managed to cause to the Mossad.
You alternative news sources live, together with you, in an alternative reality, and if you’re comfortable there, by all means stay there. But we Israelis don’t have that luxury.

A D Kent
A D Kent
25 days ago

More fantastical prescriptions from the relentlessly, pathologically wrong Neoconservative Luttwak. There’s plenty of evidence that the Iranian’s got a very large number of their missiles through – it’s only a complete censorship programme from the Israeli regime that’s keeping us in the dark on this. You can’t blame them for this – any targetting information for the Iranians would be helpful for them – but we don’t have to trust them.

Outside the Israeli information cordon there’s plenty of videos from the Negev Bedouin showing multiple hits in and around some of their most well protected targets. That these targets include the Dimona Nuclear facility would worry anything other than a reckless, fascist regime (so I wonder what Netanyahu will make of it)

That all their missiles might not be pin-point accurate tells us nothing if the Iranians took the (perfectly rational) step of mixing up some of the newer munitions with a majority of their older ones. The IDF’s AD systems would have a hard time distinguishing between them and gave every indication of being swamped anyway

As for ‘dispatching’ Israeli bombers to Iran – that’s a round trip of 2,000 miles we’re talking about. Yes perfetly doable with Israel’s jets, but they’d be horribly exposed. The distance also likely rules out the use of any particularly heavy bunker-busters which would necessitate en-route refueling – which makes everything more complicated, more exposed and easier to hit with an S400 or two. The same is true to the US’s B52s – which last saw service against Iraq’s denuded AD systems – they, like the many US bases in the Middle East, are great big targets.

Regarding the oil, there’s no reason the Iranians would need to attack the Saudi terminals or refineries – they could simply restrict passage of tankers with an eventual destination in the West – and let it still flow past to India, China or other BRICS members. A recent meeting between the Iranian foreign minister and the Saudis suggest that, despite all the Abrham accord bluster, the rapprochement between Iran and the Saudis is a real thing.

Of course the devastation inflicted on Iran would be monumental, but don’t pretend that the potential costs to the US wouldn’t be huge – and for the Israelis they could be terminal.  

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
25 days ago
Reply to  A D Kent

Speaking of relentlessly fascist….the spittle metaphorical drips all over your post. It must feel great to exercise your hatred so much.

A D Kent
A D Kent
25 days ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

I just don’t want me, my family and friends to all die in a horrible nuclear winter because one nasty theocratic regime is intent on drawing another one into a war that neither can win and that both probably have the ability to escalate to nuclear arms. I don’t like it when that war is cheered on by disgusting chicken-hawk neoconservatives with the most appaling of track records. My lips remain as dry as I’m certain yours have been for the last 3 decades.

Jürg Gassmann
Jürg Gassmann
24 days ago
Reply to  A D Kent

The ad hominem attack is the refuge of the scoundrel.
Someone with intelligence, expertise and integrity would have had a substantive response to your assertion.

Christopher Barry
Christopher Barry
24 days ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

I think it’s reasonable to think about the logistical complexity of a military operation. Can the case for war really be captured in a single article? Do we really believe that in the Pentagon meetings they have no further intelligence to offer than what we read here?

Regarding spittle, I think ADK’s post is about average for Unherd comments!

Malcolm Webb
Malcolm Webb
25 days ago

We surely know what the end game for Iran and its allies is – the utter destruction of Israel . For Israel the end game is survival. Telling Israelis to lay down their arms before a regime which openly professes that it wishes to annihilate them seems foolish if not immoral to me. Of course Israel has to keep on fighting.

laurence scaduto
laurence scaduto
25 days ago
Reply to  Malcolm Webb

Agreed. The Israelis are certainly not fools. They will keep fighting for their homeland, despite what Biden, or anyone else, says.

Benjamin Dyke
Benjamin Dyke
25 days ago

Can someone remind me of the point of the United Nations again? And if the UN actually does anything then why do we have NATO? Why is the US left being the only viable policeman in the world (which I’m very grateful for btw)? Russia or China anyone? With a side helping of Iran and other countries and regimes full of shiite theology (works with and without the second i)?

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
25 days ago
Reply to  Benjamin Dyke

The UN and NATO long ago outlived their usefulness.

Jürg Gassmann
Jürg Gassmann
24 days ago
Reply to  Benjamin Dyke

UN and NATO in this context are two completely different matters. NATO is the “North ATLANTIC Treaty Organisation”. It is a military alliance, and has no role in this conflict.
The UN on the other hand is an international organisation at which the nations of the world are meant to come together to sort out disputes peacefully. It is true that it seems singularly pointless whenever the superpowers clash, but that underestimates the value of diplomacy. The West has rejected diplomacy in favour of propaganda, hypocritical grandstanding, sanctions, and proxy wars, so it follows that the West is treating the UN with contempt (as shines through in your post).
History though teaches us that even seemingly impotent talking-shops (which the UN is) exercise considerable moral authority. We in the West have our heads too far up our asses to appreciate what is going on, but like gravity, reality is a b***h, and wins in the end.

laurence scaduto
laurence scaduto
25 days ago

A question has been nagging my mind for years. I’m probably just being dense, but here goes: Why do the long-range weapons fired by Israel’s enemies always wind up destroying nothing but some scrub in the desert?
Do they lack the technical expertise to shoot straight? Are they afraid of the Israeli response? Is it a simple lack of nerve?

John Tyler
John Tyler
25 days ago

They’re mostly shot down

laurence scaduto
laurence scaduto
24 days ago
Reply to  John Tyler

Yet the few that get through land in the desert, or by the side of some lonely road. It’s been like this for many years.

Ian Wigg
Ian Wigg
24 days ago

I would imagine that the defence systems are more focused on populated areas and important infrastructure. A missile which lands, assuming it’s conventional, in open gtound awsy fromm everything isn’t probably worth the cost of shooting it down.

John Tyler
John Tyler
24 days ago

That is because it’s bloody hard to hit a small target from such a distance! The ones that look to be on an accurate path to cities and military installations are the first to be taken out.

John Tyler
John Tyler
25 days ago

My goodness! How the anti-Semitic and anti-capitalist lobbies are screaming at this article!

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
25 days ago

Excellent article..Period!

mike otter
mike otter
25 days ago

As with the Germans in 1944-45 the irani will only be dissuaded if 50% are killed and the survivors starved and brutalised in the same way the Russians did back then. Sad but true.

P Branagan
P Branagan
23 days ago

Luttwak is a sickening apology for a human being. As are all those that uptick his racist warmongering rantings.

Hans Daoghn
Hans Daoghn
20 days ago

I wish Biden would make up is mind. One day Biden thinks he is the Commander in Chief. The next day he thinks Bibi is.

Don Lightband
Don Lightband
19 days ago

I for one would like to learn more about three entities invoked in this piece:.
1) exact nature of the interdiction that “forbids” Israel from attacking aforememtioned Iranian installations
2). the “people of Iran” – are they one body of opinion?
3) the “secular opposition” – to what degree are they represented in political action?

Darwin K Godwin
Darwin K Godwin
19 days ago

I think of my young Iranian friends who would love to see their present regime wiped from the map.