GENERAL JACOB NAGEL: Why Israel’s failure to strike back at Iran could lead to a NUCLEAR WAR – and the three targets the Jewish state should attack right now… starting with Tehran’s nuclear weapons lair buried under a mountain

There is no going back to the days before October 7, 2023 – before Hamas stormed across Israel’s borders to murder, rape, maim and kidnap innocent civilians.

Now, there is no going back to a time before April 13, 2024.

The world changed irrevocably on Saturday when Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, unleashed, for the first time, a direct attack against the Jewish state from Iranian territory.

Israel has now demonstrated, in the most significant way yet, the superiority of its missile defense systems by intercepting more than 95 percent of the hundreds of armed drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles launched by Tehran.

However, pride in this technological wizardry should not lull Israel and its allies into a false sense of security or diminish the seriousness of this change in the Middle East’s savage rules of engagement.

Make no mistake: the threat to Israel’s existence is greater today than ever.

For decades, Tehran has acted as the head of a terrorist octopus, attacking its Western enemies with long tentacles in the form of allied armies arrayed in a ring of fire around Israel (Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and militias in Yemen, Syria and Iraq).

But these new attacks raise the stakes dramatically.

Iran’s strike came in response to an Israeli Air Force strike in Damascus earlier this month, which killed Mohammad Reza Zahedi, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force in Syria and Lebanon.

Zahedi was a big shot. He was responsible for numerous terrorist attacks against Israel and participated in an attack by an Iranian-backed militia that killed three American soldiers in Jordan in January.

There is also evidence that he was involved in the planning and execution of the October 7 attacks and, at the time of his murder, Zahedi was planning other terrorist plots.

Israel was acting within the rules of its dangerous neighborhood by eliminating it. But the ayatollah responded with a potentially catastrophic bombardment of Israeli civilians, military bases and government facilities.

If Iran emerges from this moment without paying a severe price, Tehran could be encouraged to deploy its weapons again. And next time, these drones and missiles may be armed with nuclear or chemical payloads.

Today, however, some argue that Israel’s response must match the actual damage, not the potential devastation, caused by the Iranian attack.

Only a few of Iran’s deadly drones and missiles actually penetrated Israel’s “Iron Curtain” of incredible air defenses, and those that did caused hardly any significant damage or casualties, except for the serious injury of a seven-year-old Israeli Bedouin girl who remains in the hospital.

‘You have a victory. “Win,” President Biden reportedly advised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, while warning that the United States would not support an Israeli counterattack against Iran.

It would be a mistake for Israel to follow Biden’s advice.

The concept of “deterrence by denial,” in which Israel uses its military and technology to limit the cost of attacks on its civilians, is a fatally flawed strategy.

Indeed, “deterrence by denial” failed spectacularly on October 7, when Israel failed to foresee or thwart the Hamas attack.

Israel must now adopt a “deterrence through punishment” doctrine in which it inflicts disproportionate costs on its enemies and focuses its response on a few priority targets.

The Israeli military could destroy weapons deployed against them, including unidentified aerial vehicle development and production plants, as well as cruise missile and drone storage facilities inside Iran.

Israel could also attack Iranian ports, oil and gas refineries, pipelines and other infrastructure that finance the regime.

Other objectives could include leadership assets. These attacks have the additional deterrent effect of demonstrating the far-reaching capabilities of Israel’s military and intelligence capabilities.

But the Israeli military’s most important strategic objective should be Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

Israeli attention, which in recent decades has focused on slowing Tehran’s progress in producing fissile material, must now focus on neutralizing Iran’s nuclear scientists and their ability to build a real weapon.

Tehran is currently building a new heavily fortified facility near Natanz in central Iran, which is reportedly designed to extend more than 100 meters underground and is buried under a mountain.

It is here that Iran could develop an enrichment plant powered by advanced centrifuges capable of producing multiple nuclear weapons without detection.

If completed, the Natanz facility could be immune to Israeli and even American bombs.

However, unlike Israel’s “deterrence through punishment,” President Biden will offer new arms sales, political support, and continued intelligence and defense cooperation against Netanyahu in exchange for peace of mind in the Middle East ahead of the November election.

Biden’s thinking right now is short-term.

His political advisers do not want to risk an escalating conflict that threatens the flow of oil supplies and causes domestic gas prices to rise, or makes Biden look like an irresponsible observer of an international crisis.

Israel must think long term.

Biden’s supposedly strong support for Israel after October 7 has waned as he faces political pressure from the far left of his party. There is no reason why Biden’s will cannot be weakened again.

Israel’s enemies will also interpret the lack of a meaningful response as weakness and capitulation to American demands. This will immediately influence their behavior in Gaza, Lebanon and the West Bank, and reduce the chances of Hamas releasing their hostages.

After this weekend, the threat of a nuclear weapon being deployed from inside Iran to Israel is one step closer to reality.

Israel must decide for itself the nature and timing of its response, but it must inflict serious damage on Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his regime to restore Israeli deterrence.

Brig. General (res.) Jacob Nagel is a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD) and a professor at the Technion. He served as Prime Minister Netanyahu’s National Security Advisor and as acting head of the National Security Council. Mark Dubowitz is the executive director of the FDD and an expert on Iran’s nuclear program and sanctions. In 2019 he was sanctioned by Iran.