In the age of “wars and rumors of wars,” the newest worry is that the Iranians—or one of their allied militia groups sown throughout the Middle East—are planning to strike Israel’s Dimona nuclear reactor. This is not a baseless fear—not only because war is naturally an unpredictable and savage affair, but also because there is a disturbing precedent for such events.

Just look at the ongoing Ukraine War, in which nuclear power reactors have become targets of the warring sides—so much so that the Trump administration was compelled to ask both sides to allow for the United States to take over Ukraine’s power plants, so as to remove them from Russia’s target set. 

Iran’s nuclear weapons program has been an understandable concern both for the Israelis and the Americans. This fear is nothing new—and totally legitimate, given the ideological underpinnings of the Iranian regime. 

The Logic of Israel’s Attack on Iran

For Iran’s Islamist leaders, the quest for nuclear weapons is synonymous with the quest for regional power over both their Sunni Arab neighbors and their “satanic” enemies in Israel and the United States. Indeed, acquiring nuclear weapons has become one of main sources of legitimacy—such that it is—for the Iranian regime in today’s Iranian political scene.........

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