In its first two years in office, the Biden administration was seemingly reluctant to threaten Iran with military action, should diplomatic efforts to stop its progress toward nuclear weapons fail. Lately, however, out of obvious frustration at Tehran’s refusal to revive the 2015 nuclear agreement (JCPOA), American officials have gone back to using the phrase “everything is on the table”. Joint military exercises with Israel, such as the unprecedented Juniper Oak, and tabletop simulations of operations are supposed to bring home to the Ayatollah regime in Tehran the effectiveness of a massive strike, should one be decided-on in either Washington or Jerusalem, or both. How credible are such threats, and are the blunt American and Israeli messages getting through to Iranian decision makers?
To help us ponder these questions, we are joined from central Israel by Dr. Meir Javedanfar, Iran lecturer, Reichman University, Brig. Gen. (Ret) Relik Shafir, Former Air Force Tel Nof Airbase Commander, and Amir Oren.
