Israel's retaliation may trigger "the nuclear option"

Will the U.S. be able to hold Netanyahu back?

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The Netanyahu government’s plans to retaliate against Iran for its attack on Israel this week are already taking shape, and they look incredibly high risk. While there’s still debate behind the scenes, the option that’s been most talked about is a strike on Iran’s oil facilities. If that results in Iran retaliating again against Israel, then sources are saying that this would result in “the nuclear option” - the attack on Iran’s nuclear program which many hawks in both Israel and the United States have dreamed of carrying out for over a decade.

Today, President Joe Biden said that he doesn’t support that option - he doesn’t think Israel should hit Iran’s nuclear program. But thus far in this conflict, Netanyahu has managed to manoeuvre the United States into openly or tacitly supporting all sorts of things that it once said it would oppose. And it’s important to note that in this situation too, Netanyahu holds the trump card. He’s already shown that he can carry out actions that American officials don’t want him to and still rely on the support of those same officials afterwards. The American commitment to the defense of Israel runs so deep that no mere violation of trust will shake it. And if he wants to, Netanyahu can start a new chain of escalation which ends in him getting what he wants - whether the United States supports him or not.

A strike on Iran’s oil facilities would be inherently escalatory. Iran’s attack on Israel seems to have targeted military and intelligence targets, whereas oil infrastructure is civilian. It’s hard to imagine Iran not striking back. And there’s another implication of such an attack as well, and one that Netanyahu might welcome: such an attack would be likely to do harm to the global economy as the American presidential election enters a crucial stretch, harming Harris and boosting Trump.