Whenever Donald Trump has contemplated confrontation with Iran, his decisions have been guided less by the consensus of the U.S. intelligence community than by his own calculation of risk and reward. At times he has pulled the trigger. At times he has backed down. All the while, the U.S. assessment of Iranian nuclear intentions has…

Some dreams do come true. At night, I dream of the rising screech of sirens across Jerusalem, of running to a bomb shelter, of thinking wildly about my grown children elsewhere in Israel dashing through dark streets for safety as missiles whoosh overhead. I dream of distant booms that I hope are interceptions and not…

“Why are the wrong people doing the right thing?” Henry Kissinger is supposed to have once asked, in a moment of statesman-like perplexity. That question recurred as Donald Trump, backed by a visibly perturbed vice president and two uneasy Cabinet secretaries, announced that the United States had just bombed three Iranian nuclear sites. It is…

There is no overestimating the triumphalism in the Israeli Prime Minister’s circle, but the cascading effects of the war being waged on Iran are still unfolding. In the days after the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, evaded any public admission of responsibility for the colossal security failure. He mostly…

On Saturday, President Donald Trump brought the United States into Israel’s war against Iran. American planes and submarines struck three sites in Iran, including two nuclear enrichment facilities—at Natanz and Fordow—and a complex near Isfahan that was believed to contain stores of uranium. The Israeli government had been pushing for Trump to strike, in part…