The Military Imperative To Strike Iran's Nuclear Facilities

One of the most consequential foreign policy challenges facing the incoming Trump Administration will be its policy toward Iran’s nuclear program. Prominent members of the U.S. foreign policy establishment urge a diplomatic solution before using military force.[i]  But our margin for maneuver has narrowed. Iran may have a deliverable nuclear weapon within months. French President Macron recently warned that Iran’s nuclear program is “nearly to the point of no return.”[ii]  Given the lethal consequences of a nuclear-armed Iran, a military strike against Iran’s nuclear infrastructure can no longer wait.

Recognizing Trump’s preference to make deals, the obvious Iranian move is to offer the Trump Administration negotiations to stall the new administration until Iran can announce a fait accompli. However, given the complexity of any such talks, negotiations would give Iran the time to complete its nuclear bomb objectives before any agreement could be reached. So, the Trump Administration would need to insist on a stringent verification regime before negotiations could begin – a likely unacceptable precondition for Iran.

Moreover, negotiations to constrain the nuclear ambitions of untrustworthy, authoritarian governments are unlikely to succeed.

Consider what happened with North Korea:  In 1993, North Korea – which, like Iran, was a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) – refused to allow the IAEA to inspect two North Korean sites to determine whether the regime was clandestinely separating plutonium for use in nuclear weapons in violation of that treaty.  In response to North Korea’s threat to withdraw from the treaty, an anxious Clinton Administration (with unsolicited assistance from Jimmy Carter) negotiated the so-called Agreed Framework in 1994, by which North Korea pledged to freeze the operation of its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon and to halt construction of, and eventually dismantle, two other nuclear reactors suspected of being part of a covert nuclear weapons program. In exchange, among other promises, the U.S. agreed to supply North Korea with two modern nuclear electric generating plants and to supply North Korea with 500,000 tons of fuel oil to offset the lost energy pending the plants’ construction.[vii] 

U.S. intelligence subsequently discovered that North Korea was nonetheless pursuing technology for a uranium-enrichment program, which could be used to build nuclear weapons.[viii] North Korea subsequently expelled inspectors from the IAEA. In 2003, it withdrew from the NPT.

By 2009, North Korea was conducting long-range missile tests and a second underground nuclear test.[ix]  Today, North Korea has nuclear weapons and has made progress in a solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile capable of delivering those weapons to the United States.

Given Iran’s likely ability to produce a nuclear weapon within several months and its incentive to accelerate the production of the missiles to deliver it, the civilized world can no longer delay the destruction of those uranium enrichment and missile manufacturing facilities. Destruction might have the added benefit of impeding Iran’s continued supply of war materials to Russia, weakening Putin’s position against Ukraine.

Admittedly, such an attack would risk Iranian retaliation, which cautious diplomats understandably want to avoid. But three countervailing considerations far outweigh that concern.

First, the risk of Iranian retaliation pales in comparison to the Iranian nuclear threat to world peace, including the possible transfer of nuclear materials to terrorist groups. As H.R. McMaster writes, “The Iranian bomb was meant to be the ultimate weapon in the Islamic Republic’s proxy wars to push the United States out of the Middle East, dominate its Arab neighbors, and destroy Israel.”[x]  He explains that “[h]ostility toward the United States, Israel, and the West is foundational to Iran’s revolutionary ideology.”[xi]  And he observes that “Iran’s leaders’ messianic ideology and their cult of martyrdom raise doubts about the ability to effectively deter a nuclear-armed Iran, as they may be willing to risk massive casualties among their own people.”[xii]

Second, the Iranian regime is currently vulnerable as a result of Israel’s destruction of its Russian-supplied aerial-defense systems. It surely recognizes that its retaliation would invite a further military response even more damaging to its military capabilities as well as reinstatement of economic sanctions.

Third, there is always the prospect that a devastating attack on Iran’s nuclear weapons infrastructure, revealing the regime’s weakness, might result in the regime’s overthrow. Regimes that rule by force lose their legitimacy when their weakness is exposed. For instance, three days following Britain’s defeat of Argentina in the 1982 Falkland Islands war, Argentina’s military ruler, General Galtieri, was forced to resign, leading to restoration of Argentina’s democracy. Likewise, Napoleon III’s defeat at the battle of Sedan in the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 led to the end of his Second Empire and the return of the French Republic.

In Iran’s case, its authoritarian regime’s corruption and its mismanagement of its economy, including its years-long diversion of funds to finance its axis of resistance to the Jewish state, has recently resulted in a free fall of its currency and a severe energy crisis, including power cuts to homes and a shutdown of gas service to 17 power plants as of December 20, as reported by The New York Times.[xiii]  McMaster calculates that Iran has diverted almost $140 million on military and combat operations abroad between 2008 and 2018.[xiv]  Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu estimates that Iran invested $50 billion in Syria and Lebanon alone.[xv]  A display of the regime’s weakness, despite its military spending, while it has simultaneously impoverished its people might trigger a popular uprising.

Given the Iran’s impending development of a deliverable nuclear warhead, more procrastination merely generates more risk. At a minimum, President Trump must give Israel the tools to get the job done. As Henry Kissinger observed, “[b]y the time the threat can no longer be denied or minimized, the scope for action will have constricted or the cost of confronting the problem may have grown exorbitant.”[xvi]   “Wise leaders,” he counseled, “must preempt their challenges before they manifest themselves as crises.”[xvii]

Daniel M. Kolkey is an attorney, a former California appellate justice, and serves on the board of Pacific Research Institute. He writes on foreign policy and governmental issues.

[i] E.g., Richard Haass, The Iran Opportunity, in Foreign Affairs online (Jan. 6, 2025); Richard Nephew, A Last Chance for Iran, in Foreign Affairs online (January 2, 2025).

[ii] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/iran-nuclear-programme-nearing-point-no-return-frances-macron-says-2025-01-06/

[iii] ISW, Iran Update, Oct. 26, 2024, at https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran-update-october-26-2024.

[iv] “After the Fall of Syria’s Assad,” The Wall Street Journal, Dec. 9, 2024, p. A16.

[v] Trump Weighs Iran Options, The Wall Street Journal (Dec. 13, 2024), p. A7.

[vi] https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/iran-opportunity-richard-haass, p. 6.

[vii] https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/us-north-korean-agreed-framework-glance.

[viii] Ibid.

[ix] H.R. McMaster, Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World (Harper CollinsPublishers, 2020), p. 349.

[x] Id. p. 306.

[xi] Id., p. 320; see also Bernard Lewis, The Crisis of Islam (Modern Library 2003), p. 84.

[xii] H.R. McMaster, Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World (Harper CollinsPublishers, 2020), p. 332.

[xiii] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/21/world/middleeast/iran-economy-energy-crisis.html

[xiv] Id., p. 325. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu estimates that Iran invested $50 billion in Syria and Lebanon alone.

[xv] Kaufman, “The Inside Story of Israel’s Comeback Victory,” The Wall Street Journal, December 21-22, 2024, p. A11.

[xvi] Kissinger, Leadership (Penguin Press 2022), p. xvii.

[xvii]  Kissinger, Leadership (Penguin Press 2022), p. 414.