Israel may have astonished much of the world with its tactical skill in its recent war against Iran, but at least for now, it’s lost.
With the help of cheerleaders on Fox News, Israel pulled Donald Trump into its war; The New York Times reported on his eagerness to take credit for a mission that appeared to be succeeding wildly. But then Trump turned around and forced Israel to back down, declaring a ceasefire and lambasting the country for its continued bombing.
If that ceasefire holds, it will mean, thankfully, that this harrowing episode has concluded without triggering World War III, as some feared. But it also hasn’t achieved Israel and America’s primary objective, which was ending Iran’s nuclear program. Indeed, it now may be more likely, not less, that Iran will become a nuclear power.
On Tuesday, the Times, The Washington Post and CNN all reported on a preliminary classified report from the Defense Intelligence Agency, which found that the U.S. bombing campaign set back Iran’s nuclear program by months, not years. It’s early, but Iran appears to have removed much of its highly enriched uranium before the attack, possibly to secret facilities. The sites that were hit apparently didn’t sustain as much damage as people in the administration had hoped, with many centrifuges remaining intact.
Meanwhile, Israel has shown Iran the extent of its intelligence penetration into the country and cannot, at least for the foreseeable future, continue its war without enraging Trump. Nor is Trump likely to restart the war anytime soon, since doing so would puncture his narrative of success.
“Now the U.S. and Israel have basically demonstrated their capabilities,” said Jon Wolfsthal, who was a senior director for arms control and nonproliferation on Barack Obama’s National Security Council. “They shot their shots,” he said, and they neither got rid of Iran’s nuclear program nor toppled its regime.
Iran has obviously been weakened and humiliated by Israel’s assault, which revealed how profoundly its government had been infiltrated by foreign intelligence, and how isolated it is globally. But its own pitiful performance in the war could create new incentives for it to rush toward a nuclear weapon.
“They’ve been attacked by two nuclear states,” Wolfsthal said. “It’s made getting a nuclear weapon seem more necessary from a security point of view.”
Until 12 days ago, he pointed out, Iran was at least partly cooperating with the International Atomic Energy Agency, giving it access to the country’s nuclear materials and facilities. “All that’s now lost, and I don’t think it’s going to come back anytime soon,” he said. Trump pulled out of Obama’s hard-won nuclear agreement with Iran out of spite, and now we’re reaping the results.
For the moment, it might be a good thing that Trump is taking his cues from Fox News and relishing what he views as a great triumph. The more he’s convinced he already won, the less likely he is to resume the war, with all its attendant risks. What we’re seeing is in some ways a repeat of 2018, when Trump announced, after his preposterous summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, that there was “no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea.” It wasn’t true, but because he believed it, he became much less belligerent.
It is perhaps the best that can be hoped for with Trump: not a real victory, but a Potemkin one.
Michelle Goldberg is a New York Times columnist.