On 7 February, the Pentagon announced that the US State Department had approved a possible $7.4 billion arms deal with Israel.
The United States is committed to the security of Israel, and it is vital to US national interests to assist Israel to develop and maintain a strong and ready self-defence capability. The proposed sale is consistent with those objectives, the US Defence Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) stated.
The following day was filled with more heated news. The British Daily Telegraph newspaper reported that Iran’s top Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commanders had urged Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to lift the fatwa banning nuclear weapons in Iran, arguing that they are essential for the regime’s survival against Western threats.
The report raises questions about the possibility that Iran has lost patience and changed its strategy in dealing with the West and Israel.
Since the early 2000s, Iran has been avoiding direct confrontation with the West and has been working to develop its military capabilities locally. At the same time, it has been strengthening, training, and empowering its militias in the Middle East, manipulating the West and pressing for more concessions while establishing strategic and geopolitical balances.
Today, two decades later, Iran is more like a wounded tiger seeking to strengthen its militias, regain its strength, and regain the support of Hizbullah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen.
It is in a state of strategic uncertainty, not knowing whether to escalate the situation or find a deal and strengthen the militias to fight another day.
The best person to make such trade-offs is US President Donald Trump, who told the New York Post newspaper recently that “I would like a deal done with Iran on non-nuclear. I would prefer that to bombing the hell out of it.”
“If we made the deal, Israel wouldn’t bomb them,” he said.
Trump approved a deal for 1,800 bombs weighing 2,000 pounds to be delivered to Israel immediately after arriving at the White House. The deal approved on 7 February is the largest of its kind and is more important than any previous deals.
According to a DSCA report, “the government of Israel has requested to buy 2,166 GBU-39/B Small Diameter Bombs Increment 1 (SDB-I); 2,800 MK 82 General Purpose, 500-pound bomb bodies; 13,000 Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) Guidance Kits for the MK-84 bomb body; 3,475 JDAM Guidance Kits for the BLU-109 bomb body; 1,004 JDAM Guidance Kits for GBU-38v1; and 17,475 fuses. Deliveries are estimated to begin in 2025.”
What this technical language means is that the Israeli Air Force will have 4,966 new bombs of different weights, in addition to guidance kits for more than 17,000 2,000-pound and 500-pound bombs.
Some may consider this to be a large number if it is only meant as compensation for what was used during the more than 400 days of the Israel war on Gaza. The fact that Israel is being provided with all this equipment so quickly indicates that it is part of preparations for future battles.
No GBU-43, GBU-72, GBU-57 bombs, or even more advanced super-fuses such as the newer BLU-116 and BLU-137, were mentioned in the announced deal, though these are the bombs that would be needed to attack Iranian reactors if Israel wanted to attack the country and destroy its nuclear programme, according to the Israeli newspaper The Jerusalem Post.
“Because Israel has only the smaller bunker busters and lacks the 30,000-pound GBU-43 ‘mother of all bombs’ (MOAB), many military analysts say it still lacks the capacity to destroy Iran’s nuclear programme,” the newspaper said, adding that this is because the Iranian underground facilities are at a depth of between 80 and 100 metres.
This may raise the possibility of the Israeli side relying on the Americans to fire a “mercy bullet” against the Iranian nuclear programme, rather than just participating in logistical support and securing Israeli air formations during any attack.
Although the former Biden Administration avoided expressing any desire to participate in attacking Iran, the position of the Trump administration may be different. Perhaps the most important motivation is Trump’s different policy of dealing with Iran, which may be understood on a personal level.
The US website Axios has reported, citing an excerpt from the book Revenge: The Inside Story of Trump’s Return to Power by Alex Isenstadt, that “during Trump’s presidential campaign in 2024, officials warned the current president that Tehran had placed operatives in the US with access to surface-to-air missiles, and they were worried Iran would try to crash his private plane.”
Trump last week signed a presidential order saying that Iran cannot be allowed to have a nuclear weapon, putting maximum pressure on Iran.
If the decision to attack Iran is in the hands of President Trump, most conclusions point to the reason for Israel’s request for the huge amount of bombs being the likelihood of its intention to continue the war against Hizbullah and Hamas and to force the Palestinians out of Gaza.
Netanyahu told the US network Fox News last week that “we must find a place for the Palestinians to go.”
This is especially significant after Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia refused to receive the Palestinians who would be displaced, a stance supported by European countries. Currently, work is underway on a plan for the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip.
Egypt has reaffirmed its categorical rejection of any plan to liquidate the Palestinian cause. According to a statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “Egypt affirms that it completely rejects any proposal that aims to liquidate the Palestinian cause by uprooting the Palestinian people or displacing them from their historical land and seizing it, whether temporarily or permanently.”
Meanwhile, the Israeli government is suffering from a state of confusion, not at the armaments level like Iran, but at the political level. This involves managing the next stage of the conflict with Hamas on the one side and Hizbullah on the other, as well as dealing with Turkish influence in Syria and the new situation created by the takeover of the country by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham.
As usual, it seems that the Israeli government has made a decision to rely on military force, restoring its arsenal of weapons in preparation for any potential military operations in the near future under pressure from the Israeli extreme right.
Former Israeli National Security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir wrote on X recently congratulating Major General Eyal Zamir on his appointment as the next Israeli chief of staff, adding that he hoped Zamir would lead the IDF in decisive actions against the enemy.
It was time to restore Israeli deterrence and act with a strong hand against terrorism, Ben-Gvir said.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 13 February, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
Short link: