Will Israel and US attack Iran?

Editor’s Note: This piece by Benjamin Weinthal features quotes from CSP Senior Analyst for Middle East Affairs, David Wurmser.

Israel’s declaration to dismantle the Iran-backed Hamas in the Gaza Strip for its terror attack could have consequences for the Iranian regime.

Intense expert debates over whether Israel will launch full-scale war against Iran’s main strategic ally, Hezbollah, is underway amid the Lebanese terrorist entity’s aerial incursions into Israel.

Iran International contacted a number of leading Israeli and American experts about the possibility of a military clash between Israel and the clerical regime in Tehran.

Yigal Carmon, the former Israeli counter-terrorism adviser who predicted Hamas’ war against Israel in early September on Iran International, said “The Americans are there to preempt Iran.“

The US military sent additional naval groups to the Eastern Mediterranean, including the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford. Iran International was the first news organization to report on Carmon’s prescient MEMRI article from August 31.

Carmon, whose voice has been ubiquitous in the international and Israeli media since the outbreak of the war, said, “Hezbollah is deterred,” but he quickly noted that the Lebanese Shiite terrorist movement could flip and lash out at Israel. Carmon, who served as the counter-terrorism advisor to Israeli Prime Ministers Yitzhak Shamir and Yitzhak Rabin, added “Hezbollah is still listening to Tehran” and “Tehran wants to use everyone else to fight for them.”

According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Iran’s regime directly helped Hamas prepare its massacre of over 1,200 people in southern Israel.

In a debate on Israel’s channel 13 on Wednesday, one of the panelists argued for an Israeli preemptive military strike against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Yaakov Katz, the former editor-in-chief of the Jerusalem Post and defense expert, said, “I don’t see Israel initiating an attack against Iran right now. There is no benefit for Israel to expand this conflict and this war beyond what is happening in Gaza.”

He continued that “On the contrary, Israel wants to contain the war to one place and to Gaza. However, if Iran were to attack Israel, and to think they can take advantage of the situation, in that case, I think we would definitely see a significant Israeli response, if Iranian missiles, for example, were fired at Israel.”

Katz is the author of “Shadow Strike: Inside Israel’s Secret Mission to Eliminate Syrian Nuclear Power.”

David Wurmser, a former Senior Advisor for nonproliferation and Middle East strategy for US vice president Dick Cheney, said, “Israel needs to reverse fundamentally the strategic momentum regionally, which accelerated against it dramatically following the catastrophe of the last few days. To do so, it cannot sufficiently deliver such a tectonic geostrategic shift within the confines of Gaza alone, although this must clearly result in a thorough exorcism of Hamas from Gaza.”

Wurmser, who was also the National Security Advisor to John Bolton, added, “Iran’s strategic vulnerability emanates from its most critical assets. First its deployment via Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Assad’s regime in Syria, which in turn also relies heavily on Hezbollah’s and the IRGC presence in Syria. Their destruction, and the destabilization of Assad’s regime, thus can administer a devastating blow that begins to seize the geostrategic momentum and turn the tide from last weekend’s disaster into anxiety in Iran’s regime.”

According to Wurmser, “This in turn can encourage Iranians to escalate their own quest for freedom, thus devastatingly exacerbating Tehran’s anxiousness, and the resulting image of besieged weakness. In this way, the war began in Gaza, but must end in Tehran.”

Wurmser warned that “Israel just learned that waiting to allow your enemy to get close or to amass great power must not inform action. Iran’s nuclear program cannot be allowed to remain at the level it currently is. It will not yield voluntarily, any more than Hamas, akin to a cobra, can be tamed.”

Carmon argues that Hamas should not be compared to the terrorist Islamic State movement, rather to the German Nazi paramilitary Einsatzgruppen. He wrote that “The mission of Hamas was to carry out a typical Hamas Einsatzgruppen attack: They hunted down Jewish women, men, children, Holocaust survivors, and the elderly, and murdered them with unspeakable cruelty.”

Carmon continued “Videos of the horrific crimes carried out by Hamas were published for public consumption. MEMRI is creating a quasi-Yad Vashem repository of the atrocities, so that no one forgets, and no one is allowed to forget.”

“The appearance of U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) visual information does not imply or constitute DoD endorsement.”