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Israel has the intelligence. Israel has the firepower. Israel has every moral and strategic justification. So why hasn’t it acted?
The question has loomed over every missile shipment to Hezbollah, every enrichment milestone in Natanz, every fiery Friday sermon from Khamenei: What is Israel waiting for?
More than a decade of warnings have passed — red lines drawn and crossed. Netanyahu has stood before the UN with props and PowerPoints, declared that Iran is months from a bomb, vowed to protect the Jewish state at any cost. And yet, here we are again: Iran enriching uranium at near weapons-grade levels, negotiations dragging on with U.S. backchannel chatter, and Israel, once again, holding fire.
Why?
Let’s start with the most obvious truth: Israel can act.
Iisrael’s capabilities are not in question. The IDF possesses one of the most advanced militaries in the world. It operates F-35I “Adir” stealth fighters, long-range precision strike systems, electronic warfare tools, and the kind of deep intelligence most nations can only dream of. Mossad has already proven its reach — from smuggling out an entire nuclear archive from Tehran in 2018 to sabotaging enrichment sites under the mullahs’ noses. Israel even demonstrated its readiness with the October 2024 strikes, which reportedly damaged Iranian missile production facilities and degraded regional IRGC capabilities.
So again: why no decisive strike on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure?
The answer, in part, lies in Washington.
From Obama to Biden to Trump 2.0, the U.S. continues to restrain Israel in the name of diplomacy. While each administration claims to be tough on Iran, the real play has been the same across parties: prevent open war in the Middle East, keep the oil markets calm, and kick the nuclear can down the road.
Now in his second term, President Trump has returned to form — talking sanctions one day, floating “limited freeze” offers the next. His Iran envoy, Steve Witkoff, is a former real estate lawyer with no diplomatic track record, currently accused of sending mixed signals to allies while negotiating via backchannel messengers that Tehran mocks publicly. And all of this is wrapped in Trump’s likely desire to brand himself, once again, as the president who “avoided war in the Middle East.”
But peace at the expense of action is not peace. It’s paralysis.
And in that vacuum, Iran grows bolder. Just recently, Iran’s regime dismissed reports from Reuters and The New York Times about their nuclear advances as “fabrications,” while its foreign ministry demanded an end to “threats and pressure” — even as it accelerated uranium enrichment and tightened ties with China and Russia.
So what is Israel’s move? Does Netanyahu truly believe that America will eventually act? Or is he caught in a political cycle — warning, posturing, then retreating under U.S. pressure and international optics?
Even former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is now publicly criticizing Netanyahu, accusing him of failure to influence the trajectory of U.S.-Iran talks. Meanwhile, the Israeli opposition is offering five conditions for any nuclear deal — but that’s just more talk.
1. Complete halt to uranium enrichment
2. Full dismantlement of all advanced centrifuges
3. Total closure of underground facilities like Fordow
4. Unrestricted IAEA inspections — anytime, anywhere
5. A permanent end to Iranian support for terror proxies
They’re right to demand them. But let’s not kid ourselves — Tehran will never agree to any of it. These conditions are not a negotiation framework. They’re a list of what it would take to neutralize Iran’s threat — and Iran knows it.
Tehran isn’t negotiating. Tehran is waiting for weakness — and Washington keeps delivering it.
So we come back to the question:
If Israel knows Iran will never stop voluntarily… if it knows the bomb is within reach… and if it has the capability to act — then why hasn’t it?
Is this about waiting for the perfect moment? Or is this about fear, not fear of Iran, but fear of America’s disapproval?
Because let’s be clear: Iran is not deterred by diplomacy. It’s emboldened by it.
- It has killed over 600 U.S. troops through Quds Force-backed operations
- It continues to fund terror from Gaza to Lebanon to Yemen
- It openly calls for the destruction of Israel — and not metaphorically
- It defies every IAEA inspection and breaks every limit, only to demand relief and legitimacy in return
So, how long do we wait? Until Tehran actually tests a bomb? Until Tel Aviv is in range? Until the next American administration decides, once again, to try another version of the same failed deal?
There is no deal to be made. There is no trust to be built. And there is no future for Israel if it continues outsourcing its survival to American elections and global posturing.
It’s time for clarity.
If Israel truly sees Iran’s nuclear program as an existential threat, then it must act like it.
And if the United States won’t act — and worse, won’t let Israel act — then it is complicit in what comes next.
The clock is ticking.
History won’t ask who had the best intelligence. It will ask who used it.
Thank you for your patriotic support to USA.
Very disappointed with Trump who increasingly looks like Neville Chamberlain in 1938. Wouldn’t be surprised if he says it’s “peace in our time” as Halfwitkof brokers a deal far worse than the Obama deal and opens the door to the second Holocaust.
Trump is clearly unwilling to use military force no matter how much of a threat Iran poses to Israel and the West. If you’re China then invading Taiwan becomes a no-brainer, because clearly Mr. “peace at all costs” Trump would not intervene.
Trump has just announced a ceasefire with the Houthis, based on a reported note passed by the Omanis that they’d suspend attacks on shipping. (Not clear if Israeli shipping will also be allowed safe passage, and no promise yet to stop lobbing missiles at Israel Such a ceasefire, by the US based on so little, is not a sign of strength or resolve.
Israel can pressure Trump by getting his supporters to to pressure him. Israel can accomplish this by ratcheting up the destruction of Iranian assets in the current tit-for-tat gyrations of violence, beginning with Kharg Island for the Arson attacks, airstrips in Iran for Ben Gurion strikes, and yes, attacks on civilian busses in Iran for the same in Israel Only BIGGER.
Never Trumpers will be on one side, but Trump Loyalists — who also happen to support Israel — will take the Cable Guy’s position: “Get Her Done.”
Witkoff is incompetent and compromised – worse than a joke, he’s a tragedy. One could even go a step further…
They don’t refer to him as “Half-witkopf” without reason!
We all know what needs to be done. Let’s go find the testicular fortitude that was left in the jar on the mantlepiece. How many more Americans and Israelis have to die before we wake the eff up.
I am not an advocate for war in the Middle East, but every day we sit and watch, Iran’s nuclear aspirations come a day closer to being reality. America needs to turn Israel loose with the assurance that we will continue to have their back.
God works on. Trust Him to orchestrate the nations and their leaders, and events. He does all things well and has declared and demonstrated His Care.
Even HE must be wondering, “What are they waiting for?”
….a wondering god?
I dont speak of the mythical sort. I sleak of The Omniscient, Omnipotent,Omnipresent One.
( I’ll assume you were joking; the situation is one humans must employ comic relief to keep the angst in check.
Apparently, both Israel and the US fail in understanding fundamental positions in Islam.
1. They are on the March to reestablish a worldwide Islamic Caliphate.
2. Talking, blustering, appearing to negotiate are nothing more than the idle idiocy Islamists and the Middle East view as the weakness of the west.
3. Every delay allows them time and is strategically nuanced playing the west by using western values in manipulation while they continue unfolding their plans.
4. The whole of the Middle East remains in tribal clans that are easily manipulated by their mullahs, taught to the next generation in madrassas and are inculcating a level of barbaric hatred against Jews and infidels on a scale virtually unknown by most of the west.
5. Iran and their multiple proxies ONLY understand strength and the administration of that strength.
The bombing of the Houthis who have now surrendered.m is an example.
6. The fundamental goal of Iran is the complete destruction of the west. They are shape shifters utilizing our values of life and liberty to invade, colonize, build and establish Islamic cities within the west governed by Sharia law, and if one sees a worldwide overview they are thoroughly entrenched throughout the US, Europe and now metastasizing throughout the world.
7. In the name of multiculturalism the west has let the 7th century invaders in and now they are moving to their next stages of Islamic domination.
8. Israel, while militarily advanced with outstanding intelligence, continues to believe in the false premise that Hamas, Gaza, the PA are seeking a peaceful resolution.They are not; that’s total western BS!.
In all honesty, Iran’s nuke program needs to be obliterated NOW.
Israel, though a painful decision to make, is still at war and needs to obliterate Gaza turning the tunnels into a concrete graveyard for Hamas. Hamas has wagged the dog using the hostages and Israel can no longer afford acquiescence allowing them to continue. These lives will be a painful loss but their lives are not more valuable than all the IDF soldiers already dead and the Nation of Israel living under this prolonged state of war.
The US and Israel have some tough calls to make and if not done soon a new cohesion of Islamic governance will coalesce making Israel’s survival that much more difficult.
Ms. Cyrus,
I am very appreciative of your outstanding article. It is as though the west has scales over their eyes and is blinded by a truth that is so sinister it is preferred to avoid.
Clearly, you understand otherwise and are sounding an alarm.
May your words resound in this world while freedom still exists.
Shalom
Gabrielle