Opinion - Iran’s nuclear phoenix may yet rise from the ashes of Gaza, Lebanon, Syria

Iran is down but not out. Since foolishly betting on Oct. 7 in collusion with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Hamas, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s ring of proxies and client states encircling Israel have been decimated.

Hamas has been reduced to dead men tunneling. Hezbollah, once the crown jewel in Khamenei’s modern day Persian empire, is a spent force with nearly all of its military and political leadership from Hassan Nasrallah on down effectively decapitated.

Yet despite these bloody reversals, Iran still has the capacity to rise again like a Phoenix — indeed, an atomic Phoenix — as Tehran yet again desperately accelerates its rapidly developing nuclear weapons program.

Now, inexplicably, courtesy of outgoing President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Khamenei reportedly received another $10 billion after the November election due to U.S. sanctions relief.

Granted, conceivably the dollars — euros, technically — are escrowed in Oman and only to be used for humanitarian purposes. Yet as evidenced by Hamas’ terror tunnels in Gaza, Hezbollah’s military arms and munitions depots in Lebanon and ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s gulags and chemical weapons sites in Syria, Tehran’s definition of “humanity” differs greatly from that of Washington.

Funding Iran never made any sense, regardless of how contorted the White House’s excuses became. Freeing up capital for humanitarian purposes only freed up other Iranian funds to supply and equipment Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and other IRGC-backed militias – including those in Iraq and Syria attacking U.S. soldiers across the region.

And as misguided as that is, even worse is Biden’s belief that somehow his overall Mideast strategy is what caused al-Assad’s regime to fall. On Sunday, Biden tried to take a victory lap claiming that “Our approach has shifted the balance of power in the Middle East.”

No, Mr. President. It did not. Israel’s decision to not cave in to your administration’s repeated coercion is why the face of the Mideast has changed since Oct. 7. Despite Biden’s best efforts, Israel has shown the U.S. what winning looks like.

In May, John Kirby told Israel not to go “smashing” into Rafah in southern Gaza. Israel did it anyway – and ultimately, Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’ military head, was killed 6 months later inside of its city limits.

Even as Israel was crushing Hezbollah in Lebanon, Biden was warning Israel in September about causing “an all-out war” in the Middle East. In Blinken’s own words at the United Nations General Assembly, he admitted that the White House was “intensely engaged with a number of partners to de-escalate tensions.”

Israel, however, had other ideas. Jerusalem was out to win and boldly forged ahead, taking the fight to Lebanon and twice directly to Iran. The Pentagon’s response? Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III said, “We believe that this should be the end of this tit-for-tat.”

Oct. 7. was not the start of a ‘tit-for-tat’ spat. It was the heinous start of an existential war that Iran and its proxies chose to launch against Israel without warning.

Israel gets this, which is why, even after the fall of al-Assad in Syria, it is conducting a widespread bombing campaign to destroy what is left of the Syrian army and air force — and their considerable chemical weapons stockpiles.

Now that Jerusalem’s most immediate threats have been dealt with, Iran’s nuclear weapons program is next on the list. Unfortunately, the Biden administration freeing up $10 billion for Iran through sanctions relief is only making that Herculean task even harder, as the White House has been consistently doing since Oct. 7.

Khamenei, above all else, needs time to recover from his losses in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria, and to achieve full nuclear breakout. The Houthis can continue to buy Iran some time by disrupting and interdicting commercial and military shipping in the Red Sea — and, as we warned yesterday, Al-Shabaab in Somalia may join the ranks of Iran’s proxies.

Israel, however, is not likely to be misled by either Iranian distraction. As Khamenei’s nuclear threat grows, the Israeli military will be increasingly focused on eliminating Tehran as an existential threat to the State of Israel — and with the full support of President-elect Donald Trump.

Significantly, despite his own setbacks in Syria that threaten Moscow’s ability to project force into the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa, Putin also needs time to retrieve Russia’s position in the region. Potentially losing his naval seaport at Tartus and military airbase and logistical hub at Khmeimim in Syria are bad enough. Losing the Kremlin’s strategic check on the U.S. in the Middle East would be even worse.

In that vein, Putin could be forced to make one last play to maintain Russia’s precarious military position in the region. Absent alternatives, Putin might fully aid and abet Iran in becoming a nuclear power.

That would mean transferring the nuclear detonation technology that Iran has yet to fully develop — and to provide the needed technical assistance for Tehran to deliver nuclear warheads on missiles to Israel and beyond. Nor is not out of the realm of possibility. Putin has already delivered nuclear weapons to Belarus and technology to North Korea.

Regardless of Putin’s decision, two things are now certain. Iran is fully intent on achieving nuclear breakout and on amassing a sizable nuclear arsenal.

To that end, Iran’s nuclear Phoenix is already beginning to arise from the ashes of Gaza, Lebanon and Syria. In late November, the International Atomic Energy Agency reported that “Iran will begin enriching uranium with thousands of advanced centrifuges at its two main nuclear facilities at Fordo and Natanz.”

This is highly noteworthy because Iran’s focus here is on producing mass — not on immediate nuclear breakout. While the IAEA indicates they are only “enriching uranium with [the] new centrifuges to 5 percent,” in reality Iran is likely intent on enriching to 60 percent massive amounts of new highly enriched uranium stockpiles, knowing that that it can then quickly enrich to a 90 percent weapons-grade level in as little as one week’s time.

Khamenei clearly is betting on this house of mirrors to fool the West — and to deceive a Biden-led Washington into believing a comprehensive nuclear deal can yet be cut. But it cannot. Iran is playing a much deeper long-term game.

Biden is leaving the incoming Trump administration an epic radioactive mess. Maximum pressure may no longer be enough. Israel may be forced to use kinetic force to end Iran’s nuclear threat and, ideally, to topple Khamenei and his own murderous regime in the process.

If not, then Iran’s nuclear Phoenix is going to haunt the Mideast potentially for years to come — and Europe and the U.S. as well.

Mark Toth writes on national security and foreign policy. Col. (Ret.) Jonathan Sweet served 30 years as a military intelligence officer.

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