George Friedman
At about 9:30 a.m. local time on Saturday, the United States and Israel launched a surprise attack on Iran. It did not seem to be a surprise to Iran, which was able to carry out drone and missile attacks on U.S. bases in eight Middle Eastern nations (Israel, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, the UAE and Qatar). In fact, it should not have been a surprise to anyone. Both the U.S. and Israel have insisted that Iran abandon its nuclear development program. Israel cannot accept the existential threat posed by a nuclear-capable Iran. Nor, as I have written before, could the United States. After extended negotiations, it became clear to both that Iran was not going to abandon that program. Whether Tehran believed it needed a nuclear weapon, or whether it simply couldn’t afford to back down from Washington is unclear and ultimately irrelevant. Tehran has said its program was meant only for civilian purposes, but given the ideology of the Iranian government, nuclear capability was unacceptable in any case. It can reasonably said that the U.S. and Israel did not believe the Iranian government.
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