Of all the times my family and I have had to run to bomb shelters over the past few weeks, the most disconcerting was Iran's attack on Israel on October 1.
Even before the air raid siren sounded, our phones rang with a new Israeli warning system, deployed for the first time, ordering us to shelter in place until further notice. We gathered our four children and ran to the safe room of our house, where just days before we had taken shelter during a Houthi rocket attack in Yemen.
For almost an hour, we huddled in the shelter as air raid sirens blared every few minutes and the walls shook with explosions. I assumed the source was nearby launches from Israel's missile interceptors, but I later learned that there had also been explosions from Iranian ballistic missiles that hit the area. air force base a couple of miles from my daughter's high school.
Looking at my frightened children in the room, I realized how helpless I was to defend them against Iran's attack. Our fate was in the hands of those who shot down those missiles: Israel's interceptors and the defensive actions of the American, British and French armies..
In the end, Iran's 180 ballistic missiles were fired primarily at Israeli military sites and other security facilities, not at civilian targets; The attack was apparently limited to avoid provoking a devastating Israeli retaliation. There was just a victima Palestinian in the West Bank.
But Iran has been killing Israelis indirectly throughout the last year, through militias in Lebanon and Yemen, Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and Syria, and, most brutally, through the October 7, 2023 attack by of Hamas, the Palestinian group. terrorist group financed and armed by Iran.
Together, these Iranian-backed groups have killed more than 1,700 Israelis in the past 12 months. Iran also reportedly weapons smuggling from Jordan in the West Bank in an attempt to fuel another Palestinian front against Israel.
The Iranian government not only harbors the dream of seeing Israel destroyed; is actively trying to achieve that vision by attacking Israel on every front at its disposal.
That is why it is essential to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
For years, the world's responsible nations have tried countless methods to thwart this apocalyptic scenario with sanctions, negotiated settlements, and covert sabotage operations. Those measures slowed Iran's advance toward the bomb, but did not stop it. US intelligence experts say Iran could produce bomb-grade uranium in a matter of weeks and a nuclear weapon in a matter of months.
The Iranian regime represents an existential threat not only to Israel. The ayatollahs who call Israel the Little Satan and the United States the Great Satan have greater ambitions than simply destroying the Jewish state.
Iran's allied militias have already engulfed a large number of countries in the region. In Lebanon, Hezbollah boosted a once functional, quasi-democratic country in the status of a failed state, paralyzing its politics, making the Lebanese army irrelevant, aggravating the collapse of the banking system and other basic services, and now dragging it into war with Israel. In Yemen, the Houthis overthrew the government and took over most of the country in a years-long war that killed more than 150,000 Yemenis directly and caused the deaths of an estimated 200,000 more people due to widespread hunger and disease. Over the past year, the Houthis have been attacking shipping vessels from around the world in the Red Sea.
In Syria, Iran intervened to save President Bashar Assad's murderous regime during the civil war; Iran now uses the country as a conduit for arms transfers to Hezbollah. In Iraq, Iran increasingly exercises political power and militia funds that attack Israel and threaten Iraqi sovereignty.
And then there are the crimes that the Iranian government has perpetrated against its own people: arrests, torture and executions for violations of the law such as protesting the government, asserting women's rights or failing to comply with various elements of Islamic Sharia law.
Americans in particular should be deeply alarmed. Tehran is reportedly attempting to carry out Political assassinations in the United States. and, according to Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, is getting Russian assistance with nuclear technology. How fitting that the Islamic regime trying to take over the Middle East would make common cause with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is trying to take over Ukraine and possibly other parts of europe.
Iran must be stopped, and Israel cannot do the job alone. In the past, the United States and Israel have undertaken successful strategic bombing campaigns to counter aggression in the Middle East.
With Iran's belligerence in full swing, the United States and its allies should seriously consider a military option to destroy Iran's nuclear sites. The danger is clear. If the world waits too long, it may be too late.
Uriel Heilman is a journalist living in Israel.
