Richard Nephew is the Bernstein Adjunct Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He has spent much of his career in the U.S. government in various capacities. From 2022-2024, he was the inaugural U.S. Coordinator on Global Anti-Corruption at the Department of State. He was also
Articles & Testimony
Israel and the United States bought themselves time on the nuclear issue, but the decision to take the military path raises a host of other risks and questions.
On June 24, Iran, Israel, and the United States agreed to a cease-fire, putting a halt to nearly two weeks of war. Now, as the dust settles, analysts must begin determining what the strikes accomplished—and whether they were worth the consequences. It is still too soon to say exactly how much Operations Rising Lion and Midnight Hammer set back Iran’s nuclear program. A leaked preliminary U.S. intelligence report estimates the strikes added just a few months to Iran’s breakout time. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald Trump say the damage was more sweeping. The official assessments released thus far from Israel and the United States generally support the idea that the strikes set back Iran significantly, but they focus on general damage and offer little specificity about the effect on Iran’s breakout time. In truth, even Iran probably does not understand the full scale of the damage to its enterprise, and its leaders are still deciding what to do next. But experts can start to catalogue the tangible results...
