The recent episode of long-standing geostrategic confrontation between Israel and Iran has verified the continuation of strategic contestation between the two key Middle Eastern states, which persistently intensifies the regional security calculus. A brief twelve-day armed conflict reconfirmed the rationality of the Israeli strategic posture and its inseparable synchronisation with the core assumptions of the preventive strike strategy.
The preventive strike strategy led the Jewish national security architectures to continue targeting the emerging nuclear programs of Arab states.
The preventive strike strategy led the Jewish national security architectures to continue targeting the emerging nuclear programs of Arab states to secure their dominant status in the regional nuclear politics. Witnessing a brief history of Israeli preventive strikes on Iraqi and Syrian nuclear reactors, the recent clash with Iran has again revealed Tel Aviv’s regional assertiveness in eliminating the future threats associated with the growing nuclear aspirations of the Arab world.
With the involvement of the United States, the attack on key Iranian nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan provided substantial support to the Israeli position in the war while putting Tehran at a disadvantageous position in the regional nuclear chessboard. It is pertinent to mention here that the Iranian leadership signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1968 and declared its formal support for the multilateral global cooperative frameworks designed to promote the peaceful dimensions of nuclear technology.
In contrast to Tehran, the Zionist leadership from the Knesset adopted a critical stance on the NPT and refused to sign it due to its diverse clandestine nuclear activities. Despite internationally recognising the peaceful nuclear ambition of Tehran under the NPT, the recently planned strikes on the three main nuclear sites were aimed at terminating the Islamic regime’s enrichment capacities. It was believed that the strike on the critical state structure would result in Tehran’s unconditional surrender.
Initially, it was formal American demand to conclude a new deal with Tehran akin to the previously agreed Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The American withdrawal from the signed historical deal primarily inflicted insecurity and mistrust in Tehran’s strategic calculation, which further instructed its leadership to refuse President Trump’s demands to halt Iranian enrichment capability. This scenario resulted in the US decision to conduct a brief strike targeting Iran’s mainstream nuclear program, and it provided Israel strategic superiority in the regional nuclear affairs. It helped the Jewish policymaker to maintain an explicit monopoly in the regional nuclear affairs, where the Knesset dubbed the nuclear Iran as an existential threat to the creation of a Jewish formal homeland in the Middle East.
The continued reliance on preventive strikes further targeted the Syrian Al-Kibar nuclear facility under Operation Outside the Box.
The conducted strike on Iranian nuclear sites could not be isolated from the broader history of Arab-Israel wars and their substantial impacts on Tel Aviv’s proper defence planning, which centred on the objective of preventing the growing nuclear capabilities of Arab nations through conducting targeted aerial strikes. Its genesis can be traced from the Begin Doctrine introduced by a prominent Zionist leader and the sixth Israeli Prime Minister, Menachem Begin, to empower the Jewish nation’s national security framework.
The doctrine instructed the Knesset-based political authorities to launch specific aerial strikes targeting the Arab adversaries’ nuclear programs. It became one of the founding stones of Israel’s formal national security strategy, not to allow neighbouring Arab rivals to acquire nuclear weapons that could enable them to oust the creation of Israel as a formal homeland of the global Jewish community.
A vivid rationalisation of preventive strike strategy appeared in 1981 when the formal national security architectures of the Zionist nation attacked the Iraqi nuclear facility (Osirak nuclear reactor), assuming that the country was producing weapon-grade uranium to acquire a bomb. The surprise attack conducted under Operation Opera on June 07, 1981, was primarily based on strong intelligence reports of Mossad, which activated the Israeli Air Force and resulted in an aerial operation on Iraq by using F-16 fighter jets.
Despite the critical reaction of the international community calling it an explicit aggression of Israel violating international law and Iraq’s sovereignty, the Jewish leaders persistently relied on the preventive strikes and treated them the gravitational points of their mainstream defence planning. They considered it an essential part of the country’s formal national security strategy. The continued reliance on a preventive strike further targeted the Syrian Al-Kibar nuclear facility (commonly known as Dair Alzour) under Operation Outside the Box, which was executed by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) in September 2007.
Operation Rising Lion 2025 revealed Tel Aviv’s regional assertiveness in eliminating future threats.
The collection of sensitive data related to the Syrian nuclear reactor through a cyber-attack “Trojan Horse” facilitated the IDF to conduct a swift and precise military operation on Syria. The strategic orientation of such strikes targeting nuclear programs of Arab countries forced the Jewish defence planners to apply It on Iran by targeting its key nuclear installations under the rubric of Operation Rising Lion 2025.
In this way, it can be maintained that the Tel Aviv-based Jewish strategic community has adopted the incomparable deterring posturing in the region, signalling the neighbouring Arab nations its firm determination to counter future threats by rationalising its corrective defence policies. It showed the determination of the proclaimed Zionist nation in maintaining its influential and superior regional standing, which is fundamentally designed to counter the strategic aspirations of Arab nations. It further reflected Tel Aviv’s preferred goals to avert the future threats of a Middle Eastern arms race, empowering the regional anti-Israeli politics under the shadows of the Arab nations’ growing nuclear tendencies.
Thus, the adopted preventive strikes explicitly show the Israeli pursuit of creating an effective regional deterrence capable of countering the perceived future threats. The unprecedented rise of perceived threats raised serious questions on the role of the international non-proliferation regime and its Middle Eastern directions. This scenario further hampered the scope of Middle Eastern peace and stability, especially in the post-Operation Rising Lion 2025 scenario.
In other words, the scope of Middle Eastern peace and stability has been hampered by the US-Israel strategic bilateralism and its unprecedented support to Israel during the war. While keeping in mind the strong defence partnership between the United States and Israel and their combined objective to target Iranian major nuclear sites, the question of peace and stability now seeks specific pragmatic reactions of the international community from various intergovernmental platforms.
So, the greater responsibility lies on the proponents of global non-proliferation efforts and the advocates of Middle Eastern peace and stability, which have been hampered by a Jewish strategic calculus associated with Israel’s offensive national security framework seeking to monopolise the regional nuclear politics. The continuation of preventive strikes augmented the regional intensities in which the victims of such strikes prefer to obtain sufficient retaliatory capabilities to ensure a regional strategic balance under multidirectional improvements in the conventional defence designs.
The scope of Middle Eastern peace and stability has been hampered by the US-Israel strategic bilateralism.
Thus, the great powers’ global commitments for the advancement of international non-proliferation efforts require them to adopt impartial and balanced framings of Middle Eastern nuclear politics, where the Israeli strategic moves, primarily supported by its clandestine nuclear weapon capabilities, augment the existing challenges. In the debate of great powers’ multi-layered Middle Eastern engagements, the role of the United States cannot be marginalised due to Washington’s persistent concentration on the question of Israel’s creation and its formal recognition among Arab nations.
American close bilateral strategic bonds with the Jewish leaders could play an impartially effective role in rationalizing the idea of a peaceful Middle Eastern regional order where the Israeli authorities could adopt a cooperative stance on the global non-proliferation norms while altering their conventional strategic orientations. It would be further helpful in supporting the scope of a peaceful and stable regional political order under the auspices of unprejudiced global non-proliferation norms.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. They do not represent the views, beliefs, or policies of the Stratheia.
