by Meir Ben-Shabbat
While Israel’s strategic standing is solid, it is also fragile. Domestic challenges, including internal strife, have diminished governability, and rising crime rates are a disturbing warning sign. And above all hovers the peril of the ayatollahs’ regime.
As we enter the new year, Israel’s strategic position is sound, but fragile and facing many challenges. Sound, because despite the events of the past year, Israel ends 2021 with its diplomatic standing strong, its economy robust and its military power established beyond doubt. Israel continues to harvest the fruits of its diplomatic achievements, of the perception of its prowess and of being a nation of innovation and technology.
Fragile in view of the large number of volatile issues that it faces, the connections between them and the broad implications of each. Above all, of course, the Iranian nuclear issue on which we are approaching a decisive point, and where tensions are increasing in the diplomatic arena and on the security front.
That Israel faces many challenges seems to always be the case. But at this time, among those challenges is the need to tread lightly on every level, from the strategic to the operative planes. Some of the challenges the country currently faces involve decisions on issues within the Israeli sphere itself.
The unity of Israeli society is essential to our national resilience. This is true at any time, and all the more so because of the challenges that the political-security reality may spring upon us. The tensions between Jews and Arabs in mixed cities since “Operation Guardian of the Walls” in May, the decline in the sense of personal safety, the apparent decline in governability and the increase in serious crime in the Arab sector have created new fissures and deepened existing ones. These are the results of internal polarization.
The situation assessment on this matter necessitates a change of approach, and addressing these issues must be among the government’s primary goals for the coming year.
An existential threat
What is the ultimate goal? Where should we be focusing our efforts?
First, bolstering Israel as a strong, safe and prosperous Jewish and democratic state. This ultimate goal should dictate where the state focuses its efforts, and should serve as the compass by which we set concrete goals in all fields for the planning and operational bodies. While this effort should reflect a desire to stay as close as possible to the practical plane, that does not render insignificant the important debate on the big questions of identity, destination and vision.
Second, preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear threshold state. In other words, Israel’s primary challenge in 2022 is the effort to prevent the Islamic Republic from becoming a nuclear state or a threshold state.
Simply put, a threshold state is one with the technology and capabilities to put together a nuclear weapon, but which has yet to do so.
Why does Iran view its nuclear program so highly that it is willing to risk paying unbearable costs because of it? One can sum up the answer in two words: survivability and vision.
Iran strives for nuclear weapons to ensure the survival of the ayatollahs’ regime in the event of external military intervention to topple it. The regime’s endurance is a guarantor that from a historical perspective, the Islamic Revolution will be more than just a passing episode. The regime’s survival is also the main tool to achieve its ambitious vision.
Nuclear weapons, or even the status of a threshold state, will enable Iran freedom of operation in its subversive maneuvers and its plans to establish Iranian hegemony in the region. It will be able to operate proxy forces under the deterrence that this status will add to its arsenal, and will enjoy improved global status and greater negotiating leeway on various issues.
Nuclear weapons in the hands of Iran are an existential threat to Israel. One cannot assume that at any given time and in any scenario, Iran will act rationally, according to greater win/lose considerations that would dissuade it from directly striking Israel. Iran’s repeated comparing of Israel to cancerous growth and its consistent threats to destroy the Jewish state reflect Tehran’s deep animosity toward it.
One does not need a fervent imagination to come up with a scenario in which internal turmoil in Iran leads the regime to conclude that it is nearing its end, thus creating the temptation, a moment before the fall, to use the nuclear weapons in its hands—as if to say, “Let me die with the Little Satan.”
Even without the apocalyptic scenario of Iran dropping a bomb, the threat it poses to Israel is intolerable. Achieving the status of a nuclear state will enable Iran to send its proxy forces to carry out massive conventional attacks against its enemies without fear of military reprisal. Iran will be able to watch safely from the sidelines as its proxies pound its enemies with thousands of missiles. This could apply to Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and the various other militias supported by Iran.
Moreover, if Iran becomes a nuclear state or a threshold state, this will lead to a nuclear arms race across the entire region. Saudi Arabia, Turkey and others will not stand aside and watch. The list of potential regional ramifications is too long to detail here, to fully describe the implications of such a process, but suffice it to say that peace and stability are not on the menu.
Meir Ben-Shabbat
Source: https://www.jns.org/opinion/the-iranian-threat-cannot-be-underestimated/
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