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Joint U.S.-Israeli Effort Needed to Contain Iran

(Washington Post) Amb. Daniel Shapiro - Israel and the U.S. should develop a common strategy to contain Iran and prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons that draws on all the tools - diplomatic, economic, covert and military - in the two nations' toolboxes. The Biden administration will need to take into account that Israel will continue to view an Iranian nuclear weapon as an existential threat, and, like any sovereign nation, will act as it believes necessary to defend itself. On this point, Biden and his secretary of state-designate, Antony Blinken, have no illusions. Biden's team also understands that even if Iran's nuclear potential may be the gravest threat it poses, its other aggressive activities - developing advanced ballistic missiles; supplying regional proxies such as Hizbullah and Yemen's Houthi rebels; and attempting to encircle Israel with a ring of precision-guided missiles - must also be addressed. The writer, a visiting fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University, served as U.S. ambassador to Israel from 2011 to 2017.
2020-12-07 00:00:00
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