|
Trending Topics
|
Source: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2026/04/05/this-is-not-a-war-of-choice/
Iran Is Not a War of Choice
(Telegraph-UK) Editorial - The U.S. and its enemies have learned from the last two decades that nuclear deterrence works. The ability of the West to intervene in the defense of Ukraine has been hampered by the existence of Russia's nuclear arsenal. North Korea watched Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi disassemble his nuclear and chemical weapons programs in 2003, subsequently allowing NATO aircraft to topple his regime as the people he had tormented rose up against him. North Korean state media stated that "powerful nuclear deterrence serves as the strongest treasured sword for frustrating outsiders' aggression." This same logic has underlaid Israel's approach to regional proliferation for decades. The Begin doctrine laid out after Israel's 1981 airstrike on Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor set out precisely why Israel would strike the al-Kibar site in Syria in 2007; it also explained why it struck Iranian nuclear facilities in 2025. By achieving the full suite of capabilities necessary for a functioning nuclear deterrent - capabilities that it seemed well on the road to attaining - the Iranian regime hoped to build a nuclear shield. A regime built on a fundamentalist belief system devoted to the destruction of the West was not pursuing these weapons as a pathway to moderation. Instead, a nation sponsoring terrorist militias, launching drone and missile strikes at its neighbors, attempting to hold the global economy to ransom by shutting the flow of trade through the Strait of Hormuz, was seeking to become effectively untouchable militarily. While the 2025 airstrikes set back Tehran's nuclear program, it was clear early this year that efforts to rebuild its capabilities were well underway. The history of Iran's nuclear ambitions is of diplomacy, time and again, falling short. Faced with the necessity of putting a permanent end to them, it is hard to argue that Israel or America had any other choice.