No Rest for the Wicked
A reported "veto" from the United States is perhaps not enough to keep Khamenei alive.
Over the weekend, there was a consequential development that did not directly involve the exchange of missiles and air defenses. President Trump reportedly “vetoed” Prime Minister Netanyahu’s plan to kill Ayatollah Khamenei. A curious turn of phrase, in my view, for reasons I’ll get into.
Mr. Netanyahu addressed this issue directly over the weekend during a Fox News interview saying:
"There's so many false reports of conversations that never happened and I'm not going to get into that, but I can tell you I think we do what we need to do. We will do what we need to do and I think the United States knows what is good for the United States and I'm just not going to get into it."
So what is it that Mr. Netanyahu believes Israel “needs to do”?
As noted on Saturday, while there should be no doubt at this stage of Israel’s ability to significantly degrade and delay Iran’s nuclear program, there are numerous mitigating factors in Israel’s ability to destroy Iran’s nuclear program. What we do know is there is reportedly still a stockpile of 60% enriched uranium and an ability to build centrifuges that enrich 50-60 times more quickly than was the case a decade ago and also - crucially - an ability to do so much more covertly than in years past.
Moreover, decades of ceaseless effort by Mossad (and international sanctions) have not been enough to stop Iran’s nuclear program, merely to slow it down. Finally, the biggest known-unknowns, at least to the public, have always revolved around the status of Iran’s ability and intent to turn enriched uranium into an actual weapon. Even among the world’s top experts, this remains a shockingly open question. As I mentioned on Saturday, though, I believe it’s worth noting this was a technical problem that was solved by a small group at a small base hidden out in the desert in the 1940s.
Iran is a massive country - nearly a third the United States by landmass. Israel’s intelligence services are second to none, especially on this issue, but the facts and challenges remain. The ability to trust is nil and the ability to verify will always be subject to some degree on Iran’s willingness to allow it. None of the status quo ante has been enough to stop Iran so far and it’s asking a lot of Israel, in my opinion, to expect them to willingly return to that status quo ante moving forward - maximum pressure by the international community wasn’t enough. Why would Israel assume it will be enough moving forward?
Finally, there should be little doubt that Israel’s strategy to date is already geared toward trying to topple the regime. Given the history, the stakes, and clear capacity to target and kill, there should also be little doubt as to why.
Many observers are advocating a return to diplomacy, including Mr. Trump, and the pursuit of an ever-elusive nuclear deal that denies Iran the ability to enrich and weaponize. From Mr. Netanyahu’s perspective, I’m not sure we can feel confident this is sufficient or even desirable.
Observers rightly point out that a power vacuum left by a collapse of the Iranian regime could result in chaos and there is no guarantee that a new government would be less hostile outwardly or inwardly. All true. But the existing government has always been a source of chaos and it has always been nothing short of hostile toward Israel (and, I’d add, America).
My own sense, having observed Mr. Netanyahu over many years, is that he doesn’t particularly care what the world thinks, even at times, the United States. For instance he has maintained a relationship with Vladimir Putin all throughout the war in Ukraine - a top security and diplomatic priority for the American and European governments. If Mr. Netanyahu calculates that killing Khamenei will do more harm than good, that’s one thing. If he doesn’t…
As such, I believe the reporting is vastly over-interpreting or overemphasizing the “veto” power of the United States. President Biden was certainly not pleased with the killing of tens of thousands of civilians in Gaza and yet the bombardment continued. There has been a just outcry at the withholding of aid and killing in Gaza and yet it continued unabated. Members of Netanyahu’s cabinet have been placed under sanctions by major European powers and yet Israel continues. Even Mr. Netanyahu himself is subject to an outstanding arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court in The Hague and he continues. These factors did not even slow Mr. Netanyahu down. It is, in my humble opinion, a mistake to believe at this point that if international pressure was not enough to stop Mr. Netanyahu from killing civilians in Gaza, it will not be enough to stop him from hunting and killing Ayatollah Khamenei and the rest of Iran’s senior government leaders.
Mr. Netanyahu has made little secret that he is after regime change in this war. Having gone to great lengths with his rhetoric and press leaks, he has made clear that he is trying to draw the United States into the war directly - most recently yesterday by emphasizing that the Iranian government wants to assassinate Mr. Trump. That’s not because he’s looking to deescalate.
Mr. Netanyahu also knows, as most observers would readily agree, that Iran is the weakest it has been in decades. As with the ability to launch the air attack itself, Israel will likely not get a better chance to topple the government in Tehran. It will remain up to the Iranian people to do so and that hasn’t happened in the years since 1979.
One of the most crucial factors for Mr. Netanyahu is that Iran’s main proxies (weapons) - Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza - have been thoroughly degraded to the point of being non-factors in this war. Indeed Hezbollah (previously Iran’s single most dangerous weapon against Israel) has not attacked Israel at all during this war. The Lebanese government itself reportedly told Hezbollah they should stay out of it. And while the Houthis are continuing to fire missiles at Israel from Yemen, that’s a long way away and it’s all that’s left.
But over time, however, if given the space, Mr. Netanyahu must assume that Iran will set about reconstituting its proxies. This has been their playbook for decades. And given Iran’s embarrassingly weak position at present, one must assume the regime will set about this work of rebuilding proxies immediately to restore a perception of Iran as a major regional power and security threat. While Iran’s air defenses may have been destroyed, the Iranian Quds Force, which is Iran’s primary tool for building and enabling proxies, remains utterly intact.
The Netanyahu government must also assume that the regime will take great pains to learn from its mistakes in the years ahead, perhaps this time investing in modern air power capabilities from China (which it conspicuously didn’t have going into this war) in addition to a reinvigorated air defense system.
In short, at this juncture, there is little reason for Mr. Netanyahu to trust that the Khamenei-overseen government will cease to be a threat to Israel, no matter what the terms of a deal may say regarding nuclear inspections and even total dismantlement of Iran’s nuclear program. Mr. Netanyahu is clearly not a man who is either inclined to trust, nor easily deterred. And reports of Mr. Trump “vetoing” a plan to kill Mr. Khamenei should probably be viewed right alongside reports from one week ago of Mr. Trump telling Netanyahu to refrain from attacking Iran at all.
Whether it is all subterfuge designed to lull the Iranian regime into a false sense of security or warnings and requests going unheeded, we cannot know. But if the concerns of the United States or the wider world revolve around the threat of increased instability in the region following a collapse of the regime in Tehran, it should always be assumed that Israel puts its own interests and concerns first. Furthermore, if the concern is about regional instability, it must be said that for decades the government in Tehran itself has always been a purposeful source of instability - in fact, in many ways, it has been the main source of instability. The Iranian government has also purposefully killed hundreds of U.S. troops over the years, let us not forget.
So even if it is the genuine desire of the American government that Israel stop short of attempting regime change in Iran and refrain from targeting Ayatollah Khamenei directly, I think the press is overestimating the West’s collective influence to a significant degree. As Mr. Netanyahu told everybody on Sunday, Israel “will do what we need to do”. I think for Mr. Netanyahu, that pretty clearly might mean finding and killing his #1 adversary.
From my own perspective as an observer of “Bibi” over many years, I think we would be wise to take Mr. Netanyahu at his word. If risking turning Israel into a pariah state and risking his own freedom wasn’t a sufficient deterrent to stop the bombardment of civilians in Gaza, we should perhaps be a bit circumspect in making assumptions about the West’s leverage and ability to persuade Mr. Netanyahu not to try and kill one of the world’s biggest sponsors of terrorism and the single source of Israel’s greatest existential threat. If that’s what he chooses is best for Israel. Either way, he will do what he thinks he needs to do here and despite what is said of “vetos”in the press, Mr. Khamenei should count on little rest or comfort in the days ahead.