A Middle East scholar on Israel’s escalating tit-for-tat with Iran

Iran’s policy towards Israel has been geared towards two things it feels it needs to stand nose-to-nose with its adversary. The first is the ability to strike from territory adjacent to Israel. Iran wants to be able to threaten Israel with a broad spectrum of attacks, from nuisance strikes to massive ground and missile assaults. Hence the importance of its proxies in Syria and Lebanon. The second perceived requirement is a nuclear-weapons system to match Israel’s. Iran is yet to achieve that goal, and one can only guess at how its leaders would think about and wield the capability once it was acquired.