Since 2012, the Israelis have allegedly launched more than 100 strikes on supposedly Iran-linked positions in Syria. It’s necessary, they argue, to keep Iran away from their borders and stop the flow of weapons to Hezbollah, Iran's Lebanese ally.
But the existence of the accord seemed to help stave off the worst. Iran threatened retaliation last month after an Israeli strike killed seven Iranian soldiers, but it had never directly struck back against Israel — at least not until after Trump’s announcement.
Now, without the involvement of the United States, said Ian Bremmer, the founder and president of the Eurasia Group, a political consultancy, “it is more likely that we see military strikes.”
Bremmer told Vanity Fair that “the Iranians have not responded, and I am sure a part of the reason for that is that they don’t want to give the Americans any reason to leave the deal. Now that they have done so, I assume that the gloves are off for the Iranians, and it makes mutual military escalation between the Israelis and the Iranians much more likely.”
And it gets worse...
A flare-up between Iran and Israel also isn’t the only — or even the biggest — threat. Last weekend, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif warned that his country might restart suspended elements of its nuclear program in the face of new American sanctions. “We have put a number of options for ourselves, and those options are ready including options that would involve resuming at a much greater speed our nuclear activities,” Zarif told Margaret Brennan on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
And we did this for what reason again? Because Iran would get to pursue nuclear weapons ten years from now? Oh, OK. This is much better.
