From the Bomb Speech to Uranium Contradictions: Lack of Strategy and the Question That Must Be Asked
Military pressure can help negotiations only when it is connected to a clear political offer. When the demand is effectively 'surrender, and then we will see,' even the weakest enemy will sometimes prefer to continue fighting. This is what degradation without a goal looks like: each stage is presented as a necessary answer to the previous one, until no one remembers what the original question was.
Most people examine facts, evidence, and reality, and then draw conclusions. In the propaganda machine of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, they work in reverse: first, they formulate the conclusion or read it from the daily messaging list, and then they knead reality like a ball of dough until it fits the message, not what is actually happening on the planet. Then they put on the suit of absolute security and export this explanation through all the regime mouthpieces, in an attempt to convince that this is the reality.
And so the state of the Iranian nuclear project goes through crushing, mixing, and stirring, again and again, even if there are no fundamental changes in its true state. In September 2012, Netanyahu delivered his famous speech at the UN General Assembly with the drawing of the bomb. He claimed that the important point in the matter of the Iranian race for the doomsday weapon was the state of the enrichment project. The state of the Iranian nuclear project at that point was something that in Israel they did not dream of even on the rosiest nights, generations back compared to the situation today.
Netanyahu wanted to attack Iran and tried to convince America. Former President Joe Biden was convinced about the danger but not about the solution, and signed the nuclear deal despite all of Netanyahu's attempts to stop the negotiations. As part of the agreement, Iran parted with most of the stock and strictly adhered to its conditions. Netanyahu claimed that the situation had deteriorated significantly, and in the end, he convinced Donald Trump to withdraw from the agreement. Iran returned to enriching at insane levels, until in 2021 it had accumulated enough uranium for one bomb. And then, another one. And another one.
When Netanyahu returned to power in 2023, he discovered information that scientists of the weapons group were discussing the possibility of advancing research for assembling a bomb. Despite the existential danger, Netanyahu said that matters were under control. They were not, because Iran continued to enrich uranium for more and more bombs until it had accumulated material sufficient for 12 and a half nuclear bombs.
Netanyahu's Contradictions
When the mission was to protect Netanyahu's claim that the nuclear threat was removed, his supporters explained that all of Iran's centrifuges were destroyed and the enriched uranium was buried and useless. Then came the current war, and according to the claims of Netanyahu and Donald Trump, it again destroyed the nuclear project in Iran. But four months later, when the mission is to convince Donald Trump to return and bomb, the reality has turned upside down.
It turns out that the Iranian nuclear project, instead of shrinking as promised, is only growing. Suddenly, Israeli intelligence discovered that Iran is smuggling centrifuges to the 'Enchanted Mountain' — a site being built not far from Natanz. This is a strange piece of news, as it says the opposite of Netanyahu's claim that the existential threat was removed. Suddenly, on the ruler's channels, they report that Iran transferred thousands of centrifuges and enriched uranium to the mountain, and that it could reach a bomb within a short time.
War Is Not a Fireworks Competition
The power of the explosion is not a measure of a strategic achievement. This question sounds almost unpatriotic in the first hours of a war. Everyone will rejoice, commentators will explain that this time 'we hit them hard,' and politicians who have never excelled at defining a goal will rush to declare that the operation achieved its goals even before anyone formulated them. But war is not a fireworks competition.
Israel may pay the price even when it does not pull the trigger: by fire, by terror, by damage to the economy, and by being re-drawn into a war that it did not start and does not know how it will end. It is forbidden for the joy that America is 'doing the work for us' to replace thinking about the Israeli interest. Before the planes take off, four words need to be asked: what is the final political goal? Not what will be bombed, but what is supposed to change. And if there is no clear, measurable, and achievable answer, it is possible that even the most impressive attack will end as its predecessors ended: with another victory photo, another bragging speech, and one Iran — wounded, furious, dangerous, and still there.
