JERUSALEM—Two prominent Israeli national security analysts have proposed that the Jewish state go it alone with major attack on Iran in the final days of Joe Biden's presidency.
Kobi Michael and Gabi Siboni, both former senior Israeli military officials, argued in a policy paper published last month that only a series of airstrikes on Iran's nuclear, military, economic, and government infrastructure can prevent the regime from rebuilding its regional terrorist network, which Israel has degraded over 15 months of war. Israel should start the attack just ahead of Donald Trump's inauguration on Jan. 20, according to the analysts—thereby minimizing the risk of diplomatic retaliation by Biden and forcing the hand of the president-elect.
"With this attack, Israel will demonstrate to the United States … its absolute refusal to accept the continuation of the Iranian nuclear program and its unwillingness to risk Iran’s breakout to a bomb," Michael and Siboni wrote for the Misgav Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy, a think tank in Jerusalem where they are researchers. "As several rounds of attacks on Iran will be required, [the subsequent rounds] will take place after Trump takes office and under a U.S. administration that is more sympathetic than Biden's."
Few Israeli politicians would contemplate such a move in public, and even in the think tank world, Michael and Siboni's proposal stands out as audacious. But their paper, which has been discussed in Hebrew media, comes as Israeli leaders signal new willingness to go it alone against Iran if necessary.
When prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed for a strike on Iran's nuclear program more than a decade ago, he was repeatedly blocked by his powerful security chiefs and criticized by his political rivals. Today, Israel's security establishment has reportedly advocated such a strike, as have leading politicians across the Zionist political spectrum.
In recent months, the Israeli military has smashed Iran's missile and aerial defense capabilities and its terrorist affiliates Hamas and Hezbollah, leaving Iran exposed. Netanyahu has said that Israel's war with Iran and its terrorists affiliates must end in a decisive confrontation with Tehran. But he and his associates have projected confidence that Trump's America will stand with Israel in the fight.
"Iran has one option left, arming itself with a nuclear weapon, and it is striving to achieve this," Netanyahu said in remarks to the Knesset following Trump's election in November. "We will be tested by our ability to thwart the nuclear program. We held Iran back by a decade, but it advanced. The test rests upon us, on the government of Israel and on our friend the United States."
Amir Avivi, a former senior Israeli military official who has advised Netanyahu during the war and met with members of Trump's team at the Mar-a-Lago, Florida, headquarters last month, put the odds of a "massive" joint U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear program at 80 percent.
"I don't see any scenario where Trump ties our hands," Avivi told the Washington Free Beacon. "So the question is: Will Trump lead the attack or will we do it alone, and maybe he will provide us with additional capabilities?"
But Michael and Siboni assessed that Trump will not want to start his presidency with escalation in the Middle East and will instead "try to make a deal" with Iran.
"And the Iranians will do what they do best and manipulate the Western negotiators and then subvert any deal they agree to," Siboni, who is also a researcher at the Jerusalem Institute for National Security Studies, told the Free Beacon. "Israel cannot allow this to happen. We have to strike Iran now."
Michael and Siboni anticipated that Iran would retaliate against Israel, potentially causing significant damage, at which point Trump would step in to provide U.S. military and diplomatic support. In the best case scenario, Trump would also help Israel to finish off Iran.
Michael, who is also a researcher at Tel Aviv's Institute for National Security Studies, said that Trump might even appreciate an Israeli strike on Iran before he takes office since it would position him to deliver on his campaign promises to bring peace through strength.
"The idea is to hit the Iranians in a very severe manner that will paralyze them and create the conditions for a new nuclear deal on Trump's terms, which will be very close to the terms sought by Israel," Michael told the Free Beacon. "Iran will have to roll back its nuclear program and end its support for terrorism and all the other things it does as the bully of the neighborhood."
Benny Sabati, a Iranian-born Iran researcher at INSS, agreed that Israel should attack Iran before Jan. 20. He said it reminded him of something the Iranians themselves would do.
"When they see a power vacuum, they fill it," Sabati told the Free Beacon, citing Iran's support for a network of anti-Israel terror groups in failed Middle Eastern states, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen. "For the next week or so, there is basically no administration in Washington to say no to us. So we must use this time to our advantage."
Sima Shine, a former senior official in the Mossad, Israel's foreign intelligence service, and the head of Iran research at INSS, shared her colleagues' assessment that Israel is unlikely to get another shot at Iran under Trump. But she said it was already too late for Israel to attack, noting that Britain, France, and Germany started nuclear talks with Iran in November.
"Anyway, you don't surprise the new president before he takes office," Shine told the Free Beacon. "It's just not done."
Asked about the possibility that Trump would not take kindly to being nudged into a military conflict with Iran, Siboni said he preferred an angry Trump to a nuclear Iran.
"At the end of the day, we have to do what we have to do," he said.
Trump has repeatedly declined to say whether he plans to attack Iran.
"It's not really [a legitimate question] because only a stupid person would answer it," he told reporters at a press conference on Tuesday. "Look, it's a military strategy, and I'm not answering your questions on military strategy."
The Wall Street Journal reported last month that Trump and members of his transition team were in "the early stages" of deliberations over "options for stopping Iran from being able to build a nuclear weapon, including the possibility of preventive airstrikes." Trump wanted to stop Iran but also to avoid "igniting a new war, particularly one that could pull in the U.S. military," according to the report.
The Israeli prime minister's office declined to comment.