Efraim Inbar, president of the Jerusalem Institute for Security Studies (JISS), spoke to a June 24th Middle East Forum Webinar (video) about the implications of a potential nuclear deal between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Inbar said the U.S. has made a “strategic decision” to “pivot away from the Middle East” to concentrate on China and its goal to “undermine” the U.S. This makes the Biden administration “desperate” to close a nuclear deal with Iran to open the regime’s oil to the world market and relieve America’s energy crisis and the resulting inflation and economic pressure.
Emphasizing the need for the world to recognize “there is a war going on between Iran and Israel,” Inbar anticipates an escalation between the two countries, regardless of whether or not an agreement is reached with the U.S. The recent elimination of Iran’s nuclear scientists and strategists who plan terror attacks against the Jewish state, as well as the destruction of one hundred of the regime’s unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) by an “unnamed source,” are among Israel’s “intensified efforts” to blunt Iran’s capabilities. In addition, Israel attacked runways at the Damascus International Airport to prevent delivery of equipment that would increase the precision and deadliness of its proxy in Lebanon Hezbollah’s stockpile of over 100,000 missiles currently aimed at the Jewish state.
Inbar expects Iran to expand its retaliatory attacks against Israel to include “Jewish targets abroad,” as was the case in the regime’s foiled attempt to attack Israeli tourists in Turkey.
The regime is also using Hezbollah to threaten Israel’s exploration of “gas in the exclusive economic zone in the North of Israel.” Hamas has in the past attacked Israeli gas rigs, and Inbar anticipates these attacks to continue in the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.
The Houthis, Iran’s proxy in Yemen, control “strategic sites along the Red Sea” and claim Iran has equipped them with long-range missiles capable of reaching Israel’s southern port of Eilat. Iran has also launched missile and UAV attacks against sites in northern Iraq’s Kurdish Region (KRG) bordering Iran, where Israel has a presence.
Although Inbar said the “American defense establishment” supports the Biden administration’s policy, he sees a “greater consensus than ever before in the Israeli defense establishment about the need to confront Iran militarily, because there is no other way to prevent them from becoming nuclear.” Israel’s political crisis may make for “messy” conditions politically, with yet another round of elections, but Inbar does not believe this would preclude any Israeli politician from prioritizing Israel’s security.
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