Russia and Iran vs. Israel (and Ukraine)?

Submitted by David (United States), Dec 22, 2022 at 19:27

Relating to this, and parenthetically to the author's recent statement that he's not returning to the GOP so long as it contains people who are not sympathetic to Ukraine, which I find personally startling given the assessment contained herein that only a Republican administration would actually combat the Iranian threat by military means, possibly, I do wonder about something. There is no question that Russia and Iran are developing a military partnership. This is a double-edged sword. It turns Iran into more of a pariah country, but on the other hand, presents the opportunity for the Mullah's to obtain everything they have had a tough time achieving by themselves insofar as nuclear weapons. With one decision from the Kremlin, it may be possible for the Iranians to simply acquire a bomb, and some ICBMs too.

The author noted with some excitement, a few months ago, that Ukraine and Israel could become military allies. Well yes, but this comes with the attached danger of a nuclear threat the likes of which Israel has not faced since 1973, and likely much much worse, since there would now be a regional power that could conceivably get its hands on Russian weapons and would be much more motivated to use them. I sadly concur with the assessment that the protests will not bring down the regime in the imminent future. So, what can be done to address this frightful reality if that is indeed so. Could Israel take the step of truly ending all ties with Russia, formalizing an arrangement to supply Iron Dome to Ukraine, and basically roll the dice with what would amount to a World War, in the hopes that in return for this, the West could finally agree to support regime change by military means? It would seem to me that in such a scenario, nothing short of militarily imposed regime change would solve the security problem, because so long as the Ayatollahs would remain in power, with a formal alliance forged between them and Russia, suddenly the nuclear issue would become impossible to resolve simply by military strikes, for the aforementioned reason. Were the Kremlin to conclude a full and formal alliance with Tehran, they could just supply Tehran with nukes.

I wonder if the author took this into account when happily noting that Israel could formally become a Ukrainian ally? How could Israel deal with the ensuing risks?

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".