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While for years the Israelis have focused to the need to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, their major concern now is the threat posed by Iran’s ballistic missile program. The Trump administration, alas, continues to focus on Iran’s nuclear program, apparently not convinced that the Islamic Republic’s ballistic missiles are a much more immediate problem. More on those missiles can be found here: “Iran expert: This is why Iran will never give up its ballistic missile program,” 103FM, February 9, 2026:
Iran is unlikely to relinquish its ballistic missile arsenal because the Islamic Republic views it as the last credible pillar of deterrence and a hedge against what it sees as unreliable US guarantees, Dr. Raz Zimmt, head of the Iran Program at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), told 103FM on Monday.
Zimmt said Iran is not seeking a military confrontation with the United States, but the key question is what Tehran is willing to concede to avoid one. He argued that Iran’s leadership has clear red lines, and missiles sit at the center of them.
From Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s perspective, Zimmt said, the missile program is the primary tool left to deter Iran’s enemies, and he does not trust US assurances….
The supreme leader may be willing to make concessions on the nuclear front by, for example, agreeing to hand over to the IAEA the 400 kg. of uranium it has enriched to a level of 60% purity, one step below weapons-grade. He may also be willing to call a halt to any further enrichment. But he will not budge on Iran’s ballistic missiles, both those that the IDF did not hit in the 12-Day War, and those built after that war. Nor will he promise to stop manufacturing more ballistic missiles; they are his country’s surest deterrence against attack by its enemies, Israel and the United States.
The Israeli and American bombing of nuclear facilities, especially those arrays of centrifuges used to enrich uranium at Natanz, Fordow, and in Isfahan, have set back by several years Iran’s nuclear program. For now that program remains a problem for the long-term. The ballistic missiles are a threat right now, for not only did some of those missiles remain unscathed underground during the 12-Day War, but since the war Iran has been determinedly building more, and reportedly improved, ballistic missiles.
According to Dr. Raz Zimmt, Israel realizes that it is not the nuclear program, but Iran’s ballistic missiles, that are the immediate threat, and it is up to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to persuade Donald Trump to move his focus in the negotiations away from the nuclear issue , to the question of the ballistic missiles.
If he cannot convince Trump that those long-range missiles are at this point far more of a threat, both to Israel and the United States, than Iran’s nuclear program, that was set back “for several years” by the joint Israel-US attacks last June, then Israel will have to go it alone, and inflict as much damage as it can on the existing ballistic missiles and on the missile production plants still standing in Iran. Save for one afternoon of American bombing of nuclear facilities in Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan in June 2025, Israel fought the 12-Day War alone, as it fought its wars alone in 1948, 1967, 1973, and still fights alone its ongoing wars against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israel would like the Americans to join them in attacking ballistic missiles that, after all, threaten not just Israel but American bases throughout the region.
And if Trump refuses, then Israel will indeed do what it must to survive attacks from its most malevolent and dangerous enemy.
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