The time was right and Israel’s window was closing: Netanyahu attacks ‘to take head off the snake’

As US talks with Iran on the latter’s nuclearisation stalled, the Israeli leader saw his chance of ending Tehran’s nuclear weapons ambitions slipping away, and acted.

People look over damage to buildings in Nobonyad Square following Israeli air strikes on Tehran on Friday. Picture: Getty Images

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Benjamin Netanyahu has never been one to let an opportunity pass him by but the Israeli Prime Minister knew a window of opportunity was slipping away.

As US President Donald Trump worked to strike a deal with Tehran that would stave off Iran’s ambitions to become a ­nuclear weapons state, Iran was simultaneously rebuilding its air defences previously weakened by Israeli Defence Forces strikes last October.

While Iran was closing in on its historic project to enrich enough nuclear fuel to realise those ambitions, Israeli military action ­designed to foil that ambition was growing riskier by the day.

If ever there was a time to “cut the head off the snake” – as Defence Minister Israel Katz viscerally described his country’s pre-dawn pre-emptive attacks on dozens of Iranian military facilities and high-value defence targets on Friday – it was now.

Since Islamic militant group Hamas’s deadly attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, the Netanyahu government had struck decisively against its Iranian-backed regional foes.

With Hezbollah in Lebanon now crippled, Hamas in Gaza decapitated, Iranian air defence systems in Syria dismantled following the Assad regime’s fall, and Iranian air defence capacities weakened, there would never be a better time to strike.

There were also compelling domestic political reasons for Netanyahu to want to press his advantage given the extreme fragility of his coalition government.

That was underscored this week when Netanyahu narrowly survived a vote that could have dissolved his government.

Only Donald Trump appeared to stand in his way.

The US President had given himself 60 days to negotiate a deal with Tehran and warned the ­Israeli Prime Minister just a fortnight ago not to launch any strike while negotiations were ongoing.

But many in Israel feared the Trump administration’s enthusiasm to strike a deal could mean it might abandon its red line on ­uranium enrichment.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the nation on the strikes against Iran. Picture: Government Press Office

By the beginning of this week, it became clear Israel would no longer be held back and that US preparations had begun for yet another Middle East conflagration.

US diplomats were withdrawn from Iraq and US military family members authorised to voluntarily leave the Middle East.

Then on Thursday, day 60 of Trump’s self-imposed deadline, the International Atomic Energy Agency declared Iran in breach of its non-proliferation obligations for the first time in 20 years for refusing to disclose information about its nuclear stockpile.

Iran has long insisted its ­nuclear program is for civilian purposes only.

But the UN watchdog claimed Tehran was making rapid progress towards building a nuclear bomb, and had enriched sufficient uranium for at least nine atomic weapons.

Iran condemned the resolution as “political” and defiantly ­announced it would open a new enrichment facility.

On Friday, day 61, Israel struck.

Dozens of Israeli fighter jets ­attacked more than 100 sites about 3.30am local time, including Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facility at Natanz, 230km south of the capital, while simultaneous targeted assassinations dealt a ­serious blow to Iran’s chain of command.

Mohammad Bagheri, military commander in chief and Iran’s second-most senior leader after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini himself, was killed, as was Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps commander in chief General Hossein Salami and armed forces deputy chief General Gholami Rashid, Iranian officials confirmed.

As many as five nuclear ­scientists were also assassinated amid waves of strikes that rang out across the Iranian capital, prompting the regime to suspend all flights to and from Tehran’s Imam Khomeini airport.

Details of the operation slowly leaking out of Israel late on Friday suggest a daring and meticu­lously planned operation not dissimilar to Ukraine’s audacious drone ­attacks inside Russia that ­destroyed up to 30 per cent of its strategic bomber fleet.

Mossad commando units ­embedded in Iran deployed smuggled-in precision-guided weapons in open areas near Iranian surface-to-air missile systems to disrupt attempts to target Israeli aircraft, while weapons integrated into vehicles were launched as the attack began to destroy Iran’s air defence systems, Israeli media reported.

A building in Nobonyad Square is shown having suffered significant damage in Israeli air strikes. Picture; Majid Saeedi/Getty Images

Footage out of Tehran early on Friday showed lines of cars queuing up for petrol in order to escape the capital and buildings ablaze or damaged.

Iran officials said Israel’s ­attacks had killed civilians, including children, while the Ayatollah swore “harsh punishment” awaited those responsible.

Israelis did not have to wait long, with more than 100 Iranian drones launched in an initial ­response that the IDF warned would likely escalate.

In a prerecorded address to the nation broadcast as Israel’s ­attacks on Iran were under way, Netanyahu said he had authorised the attacks because Tehran now had enough enriched uranium to produce nuclear weapons.

“In recent months Iran has taken steps it has never taken ­before … to weaponise this ­enriched uranium,” he said, adding the attack was intended to “roll back the Iranian threat to Israel’s very survival”.

“We struck at the heart of Iran’s nuclear enrichment program. We struck at the heart of Iran’s nuclear weaponisation program. We targeted Iran’s main ­enrichment facility in Natanz. We targeted Iran’s leading nuclear scientists working on the Iranian bomb. We also struck at the heart of Iran’s ballistic missile program.”

Netanyahu declared a state of emergency and warned conflict-weary Israelis to expect massive retaliation from Iran in the coming days.

Operation Rising Lion would continue “for as long as it takes to remove this threat”.

Despite apparently rising tensions between the two leaders in recent weeks, Netanyahu also thanked Trump for “confronting Iran’s nuclear weapons program”.

Within hours of Israel’s attack, the US President revealed what many had already assumed; that Netanyahu had informed him this week that the airstrikes were coming.

Whether that amounted to a green light from the US or simply resignation is unclear.

Clearly Trump would prefer not to get entangled in another Middle East conflagration, though Netanyahu may be calculating on the likelihood of an Iranian misstep drawing it in regardless.

Iran warned this week that it would hit US as well as Israel targets in the event of an attack – a threat that places the US embassy in Baghdad and the US Bahrain-based Fifth Fleet directly in the crosshairs.

Tehran could also try to blockade the strategic Strait of Hormuz, to block the deployment of further US naval support.

Australia’s Foreign Minister, Penny Wong, said on Friday that the government was “alarmed” at the strikes which “risks further ­destabilising a region that is already volatile”.

“We call on all parties to refrain from actions and rhetoric that would further exacerbate tensions,” she said.

“We all understand … the threat of Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile program, it represents a threat to international peace and security and we urge the parties to prioritise dialogue and diplomacy.”

Israeli officials allege Iran has enough enriched uranium to build nuclear bombs “within days”.

Even beyond that looming ­nuclear threat, Tehran’s plans to produce thousands of ballistic missiles in the next few years poses an overwhelming threat to Israel’s military defences, they add.

Within hours of Friday’s strikes, IDF chief Eyal Zamir said in a statement that the situation had reached “the point of no ­return”.

In a pep talk to the IDF’s top brass ahead of the strikes on Iran, Defence Minister Katz said Tehran was “more determined than ever to realise its vision of destroying Israel”.

“We are at a critical juncture; if we miss it, we will have no way to prevent Iran from acquiring ­nuclear weapons that threaten our existence,” he said.

“We have dealt with Iran’s proxies over the past year and a half, but now we are dealing with the head of the snake itself.”

While Katz insisted the IDF had the intelligence and operational capabilities to confront the challenge on its own, many analysts have questioned whether ­Israel can inflict decisive damage on Iran’s nuclear program without US military assistance.

Without access to a stock of the US military’s highly accurate GBU-57 and GBU-74 “bunker buster” bombs, it was unlikely to be able to reach Iran’s deep-underground nuclear facilities.

Some analysts suggest the US may already be providing real-time intelligence to aid Israeli targeting, as well as bomb damage assessment through American satellite-intelligence gathering ­facilities, notwithstanding US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s ­insistence that the US was not ­involved in the attacks.

“Tonight, Israel took unilateral action against Iran. We are not involved in strikes against Iran and our top priority is protecting American forces in the region,” Rubio said in a statement, adding that Iran should not target US interests or personnel.

But questions over whether ­Israel has the capacity to deal a ­decisive blow to Iran’s nuclear project may be missing the point of the exercise.

In the face of what Netanyahu sees as an immediate and existential threat, inflicting enough damage on the Iranian security establishment and nuclear industry to at least set back its ambitions means Israel lives to fight another day.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu has dealt a humiliating blow to ­Tehran.

Friday’s attacks appeared – ­incredibly, given the escalating rhetoric of recent months – to have caught the Islamic regime offguard.

Just this week, Tehran officials foreshadowed an immediate counterstrike to any Israeli attack with hundreds of ballistic missiles, while Defence Minister General Aziz Nasirzadeh warned on Thursday that the US would also suffer heavy losses in the event of an Israeli attack.

“America will have to leave the region because all its military bases are within our reach and we will, without any consideration, target them in the host countries,” he warned.

Iran is believed to possess about 2000 ballistic missiles and a similar number of aerial drones, and will likely seek to overwhelm ­Israeli air defences. Its capacity to do so could depend on whether the US steps in to help intercept Iran­ian missiles, as it did last October when Israel and Iran exchanged direct fire for the first time.

US officials have insisted in the wake of Israel’s attacks that they still hope to hold talks with Iran in Oman on Sunday.

But Tehran has ruled out any further negotiations, raising the risk that Israel’s actions, while averting any immediate catastrophe, have only driven the country’s nuclear industry further underground.