Iran made it’s point: it can destroy Israel. That puts Israel’s nuclear weapons on the table. From Douglas Macgregor at theamericanconservative.com:
And will the U.S. be dragged along for the ride?
In August 1961, during a period when tensions between Washington and Moscow were at a high point, Admiral Konstantin I. Derevyanko penned a letter to Premier Krushchev. His purpose was to alert Krushchev to what the Admiral called the “nuclear romanticism” of the Soviet General Staff. The Admiral’s words still carry the force of logic and common sense and are still worthy of our attention today:
Which planet do these people [the Soviet General Staff] intend to live on in the future, and to which Earth do they plan to send their troops to conquer territories?… By this indiscriminately massive use of nuclear weapons on a small and narrow area like Western Europe, we would not only be accepting millions of radioactively contaminated civilians, but, because of the prevailing westerly winds, would also be radioactively contaminating millions of our own people for decades—our armed forces and the populations of the socialist countries, including our own country as far as the Urals.
According to an unnamed official of the U.S. Government, President Joe Biden has told Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the United States will not participate in a counterstrike against Iran. This is gratifying news.
Israel does not contemplate operations against Iran or any other state that challenges Israel’s bid for strategic dominance in exclusively conventional military terms. In other words, for Israel’s national leadership, the use of a nuclear weapon is always on the table. Israel’s fundamental deterrence is still asymmetric nuclear capability.
Until now, Washington’s unconditional support for any action Netanyahu wants to take has made Washington an accomplice in Israel’s deliberate slaughter and starvation of Gaza’s Arab population and in the Israeli attack on the Iranian consulate in Syria, a violation of international law. This collaborative support erodes the power and authority of the American People.
It’s time to ask whether American national interest and common sense are finally intruding in the formulation and conduct of U.S. foreign policy. No one in the United States, Europe, or Asia benefits economically, politically, or financially from a regional war in the Middle East that closes the Straits of Hormuz and potentially invites direct Russian military intervention on Iran’s side. Is it also possible that Biden might object to the destruction of life in Gaza?
