Why Did Israel Strike Iran Now?

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Israel attacked Iran because it believed Iran was close to getting a nuclear weapon, and that threatened Israel’s existence.

But why does Iran want to eliminate Israel?
Was it close to developing a nuclear weapon?
Why did Israel attack now? Why not earlier or later?
Was there any other way?
What does all this say about the outcome of the war?

These are the questions we’re going to answer today, starting with the most fundamental:

Why does Iran want to eradicate Israel?

This was not always the case. Israel and Iran were allies during the last shah’s reign. So why did Iran turn on Israel?

In 1979, the Iranian Revolution pushed out Shah Pahlavi, and a new state emerged: an Islamic theocratic republic that declared the West as its enemy, particularly Israel and the US. Iran’s fifth goal stated in its constitution aims at:

…the complete elimination of imperialism and the prevention of foreign influence.

Why?

The Great Game

In the 19th Century, the British and Russia fought for dominance in Central Asia. One of the theaters of this fight was Iran, and Britain generally prevailed. It used this power to create a monopoly on Iranian oil, kept most of the profits, and supported friendly governments, like the 1921 Pahlavi coup d’état, a pro-Western military man. In 1941, during WW2, Britain occupied the country together with the Soviet Union.

After the war, it withdrew, but expected to maintain its influence—especially its monopoly and profits on oil. The Iranians saw this as unfair, stoking nationalism. The government tried to renegotiate the oil deal, so Britain started undermining the Iranian government’s power: It funded Iranian oppositors, created an oil embargo that impoverished the Iranian government, further firing up nationalist sentiment against Western imperialism, started working towards a coup, and tried to recruit the help of the US, alleging that the USSR was lingering in Iran because it wanted to turn the country Communist.

After the oil embargo hurt the economy, which increased internal dissent, the government became more authoritarian, and that helped a 1953 coup d’état, led by the US, succeed. The British monopoly on oil was replaced by an oligopoly made up of a group of Western oil companies, profits were renegotiated, and the US supported the pro-Western Shah’s extended powers, which included, among others, funding the Iranian secret police.

The Shah’s Modernization

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, last shah of Iran

The Shah threw himself into a modernization and Westernization of the country, the white revolution: He carried out land reform where land was redistributed to farmers, landlords were compensated for their land by shares of privatized state-owned factories, transport networks were expanded, dam and irrigation projects carried out, malaria eradicated, manufacturing plants built, profit-sharing schemes designed for workers, women were allowed to vote, forests and pastures were nationalized, literacy and health services were provided across the country…

Iran before the 1979 Islamic Revolution

All of this was fueled by the money pouring in from oil sales, which increased dramatically after the 1973 oil crisis.

Prices quintupled in a year.

Alas, this was problematic in a few ways. First, a big chunk of this money went to the Shah and his family or cronies. The masses resented the increasingly corrupt government.

Second, the outpour of oil money injected into the economy caused inflation.

Third, to quench inflation, Pahlavi imposed price controls—which never work—and later reduced government spending—which pushed many people out of work, smashing their hopes of a brighter future.

Fourth, Islamists were threatened by this westernization, as it was replacing the traditional role of religion in education and family law, and in rural areas, this caused a typical struggle for influence between church and state.

Fifth, the modernization was associated with the Shah’s sponsors, mainly the imperialistic US. Many Iranians felt that the Shah's government was not acting in the best interests of the Iranian people and that it was too closely aligned with Western interests, especially at the expense of Iranian sovereignty and cultural identity.

Sixth, the Shah's reforms swelled the size of the two classes that posed the greatest challenges to his monarchy: the intelligentsia, and the urban working class. Their resentment of the Shah also grew, as they were now stripped of organizations that had represented them in the past and given them avenues for status, such as political parties, professional associations, trade unions, and independent newspapers. Indeed, the Shah invested in the economy, but he also quashed organizations that could challenge his leadership.

Seventh, the land reform, instead of allying the peasants with the government, produced large numbers of independent farmers and landless laborers who became loose political cannons, with no loyalty to the Shah.

Eighth, Pahlavi made heavy use of his secret police to quell dissidents.

Ninth, because the Shah didn’t have riot police, he frequently deployed the army to stop demonstrations, but the army was not prepared for that, and sometimes demonstrators were killed. This fired people up against the regime, but Pahlavi didn’t want to overuse force. The result was a deployment of the army who couldn’t use its weapons to quell dissent, and became disaffected.

Tenth, Pahlavi’s hesitancy in using a heavy hand with opponents translated into being too accommodating, which showed his weakness.

Eleventh, as instability was reaching its apex in late 1978, oil revenues dried up because oil workers protested all of the above with a strike.

Twelfth, the Shah was sick with cancer, and would die just one year later. This might have made him weaker in his stance, as he was not fighting for power.

This is not an exhaustive list, but you can see the pattern: An elitist, pro-Western, anti-Islamic leader, propped up by the US, initially succeeded in modernizing the economy, but hit some roadblocks and didn’t act decisively, letting the opposition take over.

The Clerics Take Power

The strongest voice against the Shah was the cleric Khomeini.

He was popular because the public was souring on the Shah, and Khomeini denounced everything about him. He was:

• Anti monarchy, pro republic

• Anti liberalism, pro authoritarianism

• Anti imperialism, pro Iran

• Anti secularism, pro Islam

• Anti Western progress, pro tradition

Through 1978, unrest grew until in early 1979, the Shah left Iran, and Khomeini returned from exile and took power.

The Ideology of Iran’s Government Today

When you take power, you want to focus people's attention so that they don’t question you. You want your supporters to be able to act passionately. Iranian leaders were adept at this.

That list of Iranian government values, and their need to act decisively, explains why women’s rights were quickly degraded as soon as the new religious leaders took power.

Anti-US

But there’s nothing better than a strong external enemy. Given the list of values mentioned before, Khomeini hates everything the US represents: liberalism, imperialism, separation of church and state, freedom, progress. That’s why Khomeini backed the takeover of the US Embassy in Tehran: The Iranian leaders accused the US of supporting Pahlavi, abetting his suppression of dissent, granting him asylum, and trying to take down the new government.

Iran hostage crisis - Iranian students climb the U.S. embassy gates in Tehran

This was the origin of the US–Iranian conflict that we suffer to this day.

Anti-Zionism

But Iran picked an even better enemy, one that was close by, very real, and had concrete facts to use against it: Israel. Anti-Zionism has become part of Iran’s core political beliefs. According to them, Israel is a cancer, the enemies of humanity, cursed, agents of the West, doomed to failure and annihilation, Small Satan…

We must all rise, destroy Israel and replace it with the heroic Palestinian nation.—Ayatollah Khomeini

On many occasions, Iranian leaders have manifested their intention to wipe Israel from the map:

The Zionist regime will be wiped out soon the same way the Soviet Union was, and humanity will achieve freedom.—Ahmadinejad, Iranian President, 2006

Today the reason for the Zionist regime's existence is questioned, and this regime is on its way to annihilation.—Ahmadinejad, Iranian President, 2008

Any freedom lover and justice seeker in the world must do its best for the annihilation of the Zionist regime...The very existence of the Zionist regime is an insult to humanity. The Zionist regime and the Zionists are a cancerous tumor. Even if one cell of them is left in one inch of (Palestinian) land, in the future this story (of Israel's existence) will repeat.—Ahmadinejad, Iranian President, 2012

Iran has encircled Israel from all four sides. Nothing will be left of Israel—Abbas Nilforoushan, deputy commander of operations of the IRGC

Israel could be blown up in a single operation.—Former IGRC chief

Iran has an annual day against Israel, and some of its leaders praise Hitler for his management of Jews.

Why?

Part of it is simply an extension of the hatred towards the US: Israel is also a western, democratic, liberal republic.

Part of it is political convenience: Jews make for a great external enemy that rallies people’s passions internally.

Part of it is that Israel challenges Iran’s historical expansion path towards the Mediterranean.

Iran and its proxies until October 7th 2023

But the biggest reason is probably religious. Jews are not Muslim, and they displaced Muslims in Palestine. They occupy Jerusalem, a sacred Muslim city, and control the Al Aqsa Mosque. More importantly, the Iranian government is Shiah, and according to its religious doctrine, for a Messiah to come back, they need to get rid of Israel.¹ This gives you a sense of the local indoctrination:

All of this was tightly encapsulated by the consistent success Israel had in creating its state in the Levant, at the expense of Muslims in that land—who today we call Palestinians. The Ayatollah hated Israel for it.

In other words, Israel is the antithesis of the beliefs that legitimize Iran’s current theocratic government.

Why is Iran so against Israel? Other Muslim countries aren’t like that. But as we saw in this article:

• Egypt and Jordan were originally against Israel, but they’re neighbors, so they tried attacking it, suffered heavy losses, and sued for peace. Now they are both on better terms with Israel than Palestine, as this allows for regional trade that is beneficial to all three countries, and Egypt and Jordan have no interest in giving rights to Palestinians.

• Syria and Lebanon used to be Iranian proxies, but they’ve now fallen. Lebanon at the hands of Israel, Syria at the hands of Turkey.

• Turkey is supposed to be more secular, but Erdogan has Islamized it. Yet his legitimacy doesn’t come from Islam; it’s not as Islamic as Iran.

• Saudi Arabia used to be more radically against Israel, but it never defined itself in opposition to the Jewish state. And now that it sees the writing on the wall of the end of oil, it’s aligning itself much closer to the US. A peace treaty with Israel is a matter of time.

• Meanwhile, Iran is far enough from Israel that it can hate it without heavy consequences.² We can say Iran’s hatred of Israel is a luxury belief.

This makes Iran unique in its hatred as of today. But that’s only talk—until it isn’t.

Was Iran Developing a Nuclear Bomb?

Unfortunately, when you make so many enemies, you want an assurance that you won’t be invaded, and the best one is nuclear weapons.

Officially, Ayatollah Khamenei has a fatwa against nuclear weapons, and the country has signed the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty, but Iran's Minister of Intelligence said in 2021 that the country may nevertheless change their stance if "pushed in that direction" like a "cornered cat".

So was Iran developing a nuclear weapon? This debate has been raging in the news, and I find it fascinating, because at face value, it looks like some people claim Iran was about to develop nuclear weapons, while others think Iran wasn’t there at all. But when you get into the details, they barely disagree!

Israel claimed its primary goal in attacking Iran was to dismantle Iran's nuclear capabilities, Iran's main enrichment facilities at Natanz and Fordow and nuclear technology center in Isfahan. According to them, Iran was weeks to months away from building a nuclear weapon, and had followed a sharp and alarming expansion of uranium enrichment over the past six months.

Meanwhile, US intelligence also believed Iran was weeks or months away from a nuclear bomb, but that Iran was not yet taking the last few steps to actually make the weapon.

In other words, they didn’t disagree by much! According to both sides, Iran was weeks to months away from a bomb! And neither is claiming that Iran was actually building a bomb! The main difference is one of perceived risk: For Israel, it’s not acceptable that Iran is so close to having a bomb.

I find the US intelligence position naïve for several reasons:

• Iran’s government did seek a nuclear bomb in the past.³

• The US wouldn’t like it if Iran gets the bomb, but it won’t face an existential risk if it does. Israel does. So Israel’s beliefs are much more important than the US’s: It has much more skin in the game. It suffers more if it gets it wrong.

• But Israel also had more to lose if the attack on Iran went sideways. So the stakes are just so much higher for Israel than the US here.

• The US has a poor track record at stopping enemies from getting the nuclear bomb. Supposedly, North Korea didn’t have it—until it did. Now it’s untouchable.

• Israel has a great track record of stopping countries from developing nuclear bombs. It stopped the Iraqi, Syrian, and Iranian programs in the past—the first two abandoned their programs entirely.

• A world where Iran doesn’t have a nuclear bomb is clearly better than a world where it does.

• If you can get a bomb in a matter of days, what difference does it make whether you already have one or not?

One of the best sources of information on this is the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations watchdog on nuclear matters, whose raison d’être is to avoid nuclear weapon proliferation.⁴ It just censored Iran over its nuclear program after finding it in non-compliance for the first time in 20 years:

Iran’s many failures to uphold its obligations since 2019 to provide the Agency with full and timely cooperation regarding undeclared nuclear material and activities at multiple undeclared locations in Iran ... constitutes non-compliance with its obligations.

Tehran’s response? It has already opened a third enrichment site at a secret location.

This is what the IAEA’s boss said last week:

Unless and until Iran assists the agency in resolving the outstanding safeguards issues, the Agency will not be in a position to provide assurance that Iran’s nuclear programme is exclusively peaceful.

The IAEA also concluded that three locations were part of a hidden, structured nuclear programme. It also denounced that Iran had stopped implementing some provisions of its Safeguards Agreement. It had also accumulated over 400 kg of highly enriched uranium—which is not needed for nuclear energy reactors (of which, by the way, Iran only has one). This was a 50% increase since February.

The best estimates were that Iran's dash time to one bomb's worth of weapons grade material was down to about a week.—Matt Kroenig, senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center on international security, who served in the Department of Defense and the intelligence community during the Bush, Obama, and Trump Administrations.

So when Trump’s Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, testified in March that the US intelligence community, “continues to assess Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized a nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003”, she might have been technically right (Khamenei might not have authorized it, and Iran might not have carried out final assembly), yet wrong (Iran might be super close to getting a bomb). Indeed, when asked about this, Trump said: “I don’t care what she said. I think they were very close to having it.”

Here’s what another expert had to say on the matter:

If Iran had all the 60% enriched uranium at Fordow that’s suspected to be there, just using the advanced centrifuges there, they could have enough for nine bombs in three weeks.—David Albright, physicist, former IAEA inspector, founder and president of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS)

Nuclear power only needs ~5% enriched uranium to work. There’s no reason to have 60% enriched uranium unless you want to make a bomb. The only other countries that enrich uranium at that level all have nuclear weapons.

Also, Iran was producing the metal that is needed for a bomb (and not for nuclear fuel). And producing long-range ballistic missiles that could reach even Europe.

So Was Iran pursuing an actual bomb? Well:

• It was opening another enrichment sites in an undisclosed place

• It was likely hiding three more nuclear sites

• It had enough enriched uranium for 9-10 bombs, which is not for nuclear energy

• It was accelerating its uranium enrichment

• It was uncooperative with the IAEA

• It was developed a form of metallic uranium that is only useful for nuclear bombs

Here’s how prediction markets were digesting this information: Just before Israel struck Iran, the odds of Iran developing a nuclear weapon were growing fast.

Also, the market estimated the likelihood of Iran making a nuclear test in 2025 at 19% just before Israel’s strike. Source.

So we don’t know whether Iran was about to have a bomb or not, but we do know it was producing enough enriched uranium to make a bomb, and that it was just weeks to months away from developing the capability to erase Israel from the map. And this is why Israel struck Iran.

But why last week? Why not months ago, or in a few months or years?

Why Israel Attacked Now

Israel has been infiltrating Iran for decades preparing for a moment like this. At some point, the head of the Iranian counterespionage unit and 20 other members of the agency were Mossad double agents.

Over the years, Israel has carried out numerous assassinations and sabotage operations in Iran.

But since Hamas’s October 7th attacks on Israel, Israel has neutralized both Hamas and Hezbollah as threats. For the first time in decades, Israel is not threatened by hundreds of thousands of rockets raining down from north and south if it attacks Iran.

Second, Syria is no longer a threat. Assad is out, the new Sunni government is not aligned with Iran, and for now it wants to be friendly with Israel. This event has brought three more assets to Israel.

As we discussed in this article, Israel took over the Syrian side of Mount Hermon.

Mt Hermon is the tallest peak in the entire region. This means that Israel now has radar facilities that can see everywhere in the Levant, without any blind side. Ideal for early warnings against Iranian attacks.

Mt Hermon

Also, Israel destroyed all of Assad’s military facilities and weapons.

This is great for Israel, not just because there’s no more Syrian threat, but also because it means Israel can fly over Syria freely. This is the only way that it can attack Iran with airplanes.

These are Iran’s nuclear facilities:

The two main enrichment sites are Natanz and Fordow, on the eastern side of the Zagros mountains, close to Tehran.

Israel is about 600 miles away from the border with Iran, and Tel Aviv is ~1,000 miles away from Tehran (and hence a similar distance to the nuclear facilities at Fordow and Natanz). The round trip is thus between 1,200 and 2,000 miles.

Yet the range of Israel’s stealth F35 is only about 1,350 miles: Not enough to travel from Israel to Iran and then operate within the country.

The F35

However, the distance between the border of Syria and Iran is only about 160 miles, and 500 miles to Tehran. If the F35s can refuel over Syria, they can safely operate over most of Iran.⁵

And here you have it:

Israeli fighter jet refuels mid-air over Syria, June 14th 2025

Third, after Iran launched two waves of missiles at Israel in 2024 in retaliation for the Hamas / Hezbollah operations, Israel saw it as an opportunity to lay the groundwork for a future attack on Iran: In October 2024, it struck Iran, decimating its missile production capability and taking down nearly all of its advanced S-300 air defense systems. After that, Iran was exposed to a much broader threat of aerial attack.

Geopolitics also play a role here. Iran’s best ally over the last few years has been Russia, but as it has been bogged down in its fight with Ukraine, it can’t come to Iran’s rescue. The writing was already on the wall when Russia had to abandon Assad and Syria fell as a result. Now the same might be happening to Iran.

Finally, there’s politics. There are parliamentary elections in Israel late next year (the parliament determines the prime minister), so Netanyahu has a short window of opportunity to neutralize Iran’s nuclear capabilities. Also, Democrats (dovish on Iran) have been in the White House for 12 of the last 17 years. Trump in power is an opportunity for Israel to strike.

So why now?

1. Iran could be weeks away from developing a nuclear weapon

2. No Hamas threat from the south

3. No Hezbollah threat from the north

4. No Assad threat from the northeast

5. No Syrian forces to hinder Israel

6. Ability to fly over Syria and refuel

7. Full visibility atop Mt Hermon

8. Degraded Iranian capabilities

9. Russia too weak to help

10. Window of opportunity: Netanyahu has 16 months before the next elections

11. Window of opportunity: Trump is in power

Takeaways

So this is why Israel is attacking Iran, and is doing so now:

• The current Iranian government hates Israel and the US because this hatred defines their legitimacy. Their opposition to everything represented by the West is how the Ayatollahs gained political power.

• But this hatred won them lots of enemies, and the only way to be fully protected against them is a nuclear weapon. Despite public assurances that they were not working on one, all reports indicate that they were so close that they could develop a bomb in a matter of weeks.

• This was an existential threat for Israel and it decided to act on it. It had prepared to attack Iran for years, but now a unique set of circumstances paved the way for the attack.

Will there be peace soon?
What will Israel do next?
Will the Iranian regime fall?

These are the questions I’m going to tackle next. Subscribe to receive the answers!

1. Mahdism is followed by the Twelvers, the largest branch of Shiism. It is notably practiced by Iranian leaders. It claims that the Mahdi, the 12th and last Imam lives in occultation, and that he will come back as a new Messiah and take over the Muslim world, and eventually the entire world. For that though, he needs to be helped, and according to Iranian leaders, “the most important obstacle for the Mahdi to return is the existence of the usurper regime of Israel.”

2. Unless Iran creates the consequences, of course.

3. Up until 2003. Interesting details about what it would take to make a bomb here.

4. In general, UN organizations tend to be aligned against Israel, as the number of resolutions against Israel dwarf those against any other country. According to Grok, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) and Human Rights Council (HRC) have passed significantly more resolutions criticizing Israel than any other country. From 2015 to 2023, the UNGA adopted 154 resolutions against Israel, compared to 71 for all other countries combined. In 2024, the UNGA passed 17 resolutions on Israel and only 6 on the rest of the world (one each for North Korea, Iran, Syria, Myanmar, Russia, and the U.S.). Since 2006, the HRC has adopted 108 resolutions against Israel, far outpacing others like Syria (45), Iran (15), and Russia (10). For comparison, countries like China, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela often face zero resolutions despite human rights concerns. So as a rule of thumb, I don’t take UN comments as favoring Israel.

5. Or at least all the parts that matter, with most of the population in the west, and hence facilities.