Part 1 of 2 Parts
     Last May, Israel completed their “Chariots of Fire” (CoF) wargame. It was the most significant and comprehensive wargame in the history of Israel. The CoF featured hundreds of Israeli warplanes in coordination with its regular army, reserves, and elite special forces. The purpose of the CoF was to train its military in anticipation of scenarios that Israel may encounter on multiple fronts.
     The CoF emphasized being nimble to coordinate and adapt because an enemy rarely follows a nation’s war plans. (Indeed, an old saying goes “The first casualty of war is the plan.”) The scope and scale were totally unprecedented for Israel. Some of Israel’s intelligence and security agencies have corroborated that there is no ambiguity in Israel about the need to halt Iran’s goal to dominate the Middle East with nuclear weapons.
     Israel is well aware of the fact that if they attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, Iran will launch the estimated one hundred and fifty thousand Hezbollah missiles in Lebanon and Hamas’s arsenal of rockets in Gaza and as well as attacks from Iran’s new bases in Syria and Iraq. Such a scenario would dwarf the 2006 Hezbollah Second Lebanon War and the combined five Hamas Gazan wars. There would also be Palestinian unrest in the disputed territories and inside Israel which would also complicate matters.
     New alliances are sprouting up as well as changing relationships between nations in the Middle East. These changes are driven by the prospect of an Islamic Republic of Iran’s nuclear arsenal. These changes include Russia’s relationship with Iran in support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Russia’s contradictory relationship with Israel which allows it unrestricted access to strike Iranian weapons factories. Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is acting behind the scene but moving toward closer cooperation with Israel in response to Iranian territorial expansion and threshold nuclear weapons status. In addition, U.S. allies Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Jordan are all being affected by estimation of how far Iran might go and how far Israel can bend before it feels that it is has to take action.
     The Iranian leaders are intelligent and pragmatic in spite of their ideological Islamist extremism and hatred for Israel. They know that Israel would feel compelled to act when the Iranian nuclear program crosses a “red” line. There is a great deal of debate on just where that red line is.
     Unfortunately, the possibility of miscalculation is high. Iran has been flaunting its obligation to the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty and ignoring its restrictions on peaceful atomic development in the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The situation is swiftly approaching Israel’s nuclear red line. A report recently issued by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) offers details about Iran increasing its nuclear enrichment on the eve of U.S. President Biden planned trip to Israel and Saudi Arabia.
      If Iran is confident that it knows where Israel red line is, Iranian leaders will probably stop before crossing it. They will then accept the Biden administration’s prompting a return to the JCPOA which will restore critical Iranian economic lifelines. Such a return to the JCPOA would have happened already if Iran could not sell oil to China at high price without any Significant U.S. sanction of penalty.
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