Israel’s Strike Changes Everything in Iran

Excerpt

With Israel’s attack on Iran’s nuclear program, ballistic-missile facilities and senior officers and scientists, the age of diplomatic nonproliferation is over. It had been on life-support since North Korea went nuclear in 2006. Negotiations with Tehran tried hard to keep alive the hope that a deeply ideological regime massively invested in developing atomic arms could be dissuaded by sanctions or the allure of commerce.

We don’t know yet how successful the Israeli raids were. Getting past the blast doors and shock-wave buffers at the underground Fordow enrichment site would have been no easy feat. Ensuring that the 100-yard-deep Pickaxe Mountain plant doesn’t come online will require continuous surveillance and perhaps further raids on quick notice. Ali Salehi, the MIT-educated nuclear engineer who was instrumental in building the nuclear-weapons program, remains alive.

Mr. Gerecht, a former Iranian-targets officer in the CIA, is a resident scholar at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. Mr. Takeyh is a senior fellow at the Council for Foreign Relations.