Is Israel Going on the Offensive Against Iran with Hollow Threats?

President Biden and his Administration make no secret of wanting to bring America back into Iran's nuclear deal. It is safer. Israeli leaders collide with President Biden. From the outset, Prime Minister Netanyahu has been a fierce opponent of that accord. It would only bring Iran closer to a nuclear weapon. His adherents go even further. According to Settlement Affairs Minister Tzachi Hanegbi, Israel could attack Iranian nuclear facilities if America rejoins the deal. Then, "Israel will again be alone against Iran."

Take note! Last week at an online conference of a security institute in Tel Aviv, Defense Chief of Staff of Israeli Forces, General Aviv Kochavi. asserts that America's return to the Iran Nuclear Deal would be "an operational and strategic mistake." Iran, he says, is running towards an atomic bomb. "In that light, I ordered the army to draw up new operational plans alongside the existing ones" for a possible attack on Iran, notwithstanding that the US doles out an annual $ 3.8 billion in military aid annually to Israel.
 

These threats aside, America will not be back tomorrow in the deal Trump invalidatedand contravened in 2018. Trump then built an actual wall of sanctions on top of the foundation of sanctions against Iran that was still there. Iran began to violate the agreement the following year in retaliation: more and more (low) enriched uranium than agreed, more centrifuges, enriching up to 20 percent while the official limit is 3.67, and so on. Closer to the possibility of a bomb.
 
The back highway runs to and from compliance for compliance: Iran is reversing its violations and America its sanctions. Sounds simple, but then who starts? Iran wants to get rid of US sanctions first - because it was Trump who threw in the monkey wrench - or else we will leave everything as it is, Iran's Foreign Minister Zarif said on Friday. But his newly appointed American counterpart, Blinken, said at his first press conference that Iran must first honor all its obligations, to be reverified after that; "so we are not yet there, to say the least."
 
Now, Biden not only finds Israel (with its new friends in the Gulf) and Iran opposed to him but also Republican and Democratic Members of Congress, often in the next-to-Israel corner. Israel and their advocates in Congress argue that Biden should enforce all of Trump's sanctions to force Tehran into concessions, eventually including further nuclear restrictions and limits on missile programs and termination of its ties with militias in the region. Sanction skeptics, on the other hand, wonder why the Iranian leaders would now capitulate when, according to the IMF, among others, the Iranian economy is starting to recover.
 
Now suppose Biden overcomes all hurdles and returns to the nuclear deal, will Israel go on the offensive? It is hardly conceivable. The Iranian installations are far apart. They cannot be switched off in one fell swoop, as in 1981 in Iraq and 2007 in Syria. Iran has many options for retaliation. After all, Iran maintains all those militias in the region, with Hezbollah in Lebanon at the forefront. Besides, Israel's new friends in the Gulf are not keen on being in the crossfire.
 
Hey Israel, isn't there enough war in the region?