Part 2 of 2 Parts (Please read Part 1 first)
     Hopefully, the Biden administration realizes that Israeli leadership will be committed to taking military action to prevent Iran from developing an atomic bomb. This is true regardless of whether Israel’s interim prime minister, Yair Lapid, remains in power or Benjamin Netanyahu manages to return to power.
     So, the big question is, “Where is the Israeli red line?” Would a specific amount of enriched uranium for a nuclear warhead trigger an Israeli air attack to destroy Iranian nuclear enrichment facilities at Natanz and Fordow? It is well known that Iran can enrich uranium to ninety percent whenever it chooses. This knowledge is based on Iran’s demonstrated ability to enrich uranium to sixty percent and its work with advanced centrifuges. Israel also knows that Iran has ballistic missiles capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to strike more than eighty percent of Israel’s civilian population.
      There is an international consensus that Iran is not currently able to reduce a nuclear warhead to a size that can be attached to their missiles. However, Iran has been making a lot of progress with that task.   Rafael Mariano Grossi is the Director General of the IAEA. Last year, he said that “inspectors had confirmed that Iran had produced 200 grams of uranium metal.” This is a crucial step for the miniaturization of a nuclear warhead. The terms of the JCPOA prohibits international inspections of Iranian military sites. Only covert intelligence work would reveal if Iran was utilizing clandestine military facilities for even more advanced nuclear weapons development. This could be an Israeli red line.
     Israel is obviously able to strike Iran to slow down its nuclear weapons project. There has recently been an acceleration of Israeli cyberattacks, sabotage and alleged targeted assassination of Iranian nuclear experts over the years. Critics of a possible Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities say that it would only delay the Iranian nuclear program by three to five years at best. However, Israeli policy makers believe that the deterrence that timeframe would afford would be worth the risk to Israel. In addition, the assumption that the Iranians would immediately restart their nuclear weapons program may not be true.
      Nuclear analysts believe that Israel will not accept a nuclear weapons armed Iran with the leverage that Iranian nuclear weapons capable missiles would give its hegemonic ambitions in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and maybe Jordan in the future. There is no analogy between the deterrence of Mutually Assured Destruction during the Cold War and what Israel would tolerate with a nuclear Iranian Supreme Leader.
      Maj. Gen. Yaakov Amidror is a former head of Israel’s National Security Council. He has said, “Israel will likely need to attack Iran directly to stop it from developing nuclear weapons.” With a nuclear umbrella, “Iran would be free to build a ring of fire around Israel” from Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Gaza and Iran. If the U.S. and Iran restore the JCPOA, “Israel will have no choice but to act militarily to prevent Iran from manufacturing a nuclear weapon.” 
     Israel’s Arab allies in the U.S. Central Command in the Middle East are expecting Israel to stop a nuclear Iran. The Biden administration should understand that Israel does not expect the U.S. to join it in any attack on Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities. Israel only wants the U.S. to not get in the way if and when it finds it necessary to strike Iran.