6 | AUGUST 11 • 2022 

viewpoint
What If Iran — Not Israel — 
Launches a Preemptive Attack?
A

s Iran’s nuclear 
program continues 
apace, the debate in 
Israel and abroad has focused 
almost exclusively on the like-
lihood of an Israeli strike on 
Iran’s nuclear 
facilities. Little 
if anything has 
been said, at 
least in public, 
regarding the 
possibility that 
Iran might pre-
empt a potential 
Israeli offensive.
The absence of this scenar-
io in the public discourse is 
apparently related to a tacit 
assumption that Iran has no 
incentive to launch such an 
attack as long as its nuclear 

progress remains on track and 
uninterrupted. Moreover, a 
preemptive attack would trig-
ger an all-out war and might 
even bring the U.S. into the 
mix.

However, an Iranian 
attack might be closer than 
it appears. In recent months, 
Israeli leaders have been issu-
ing increasingly dire warnings 
of pending action in an appar-

ent effort to convince Iran to 
curb its nuclear progress. The 
most recent of these threats 
came on July 18 when IDF 
Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi 
stated, “The IDF continues 
to prepare vigorously for an 
attack on Iran … Preparing 
a military option against the 
Iranian nuclear program is a 
moral obligation and a nation-
al security imperative.”
He added that the military 
option is “at the center of 
preparations in the IDF and 
include a variety of opera-
tional plans, the allocation of 
many resources, the acquisi-
tion of appropriate weapons, 
intelligence and training.”
For Iran to ignore such 
threats would be irrational 

Avigdor 
Haselkorn
jns.org

PURELY COMMENTARY

continued on page 9

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