Biden says Israel shouldn’t strike Iranian nuclear sites, but US officials recognize it has a right to respond to attack

President Joe Biden is counseling Israel to take a proportional response to this week’s barrage of Iranian ballistic missiles, voicing opposition to a potential strike on Iran’s nuclear sites in the hopes of preventing the conflict that has erupted in the region from widening further.

American officials are not privately trying to persuade Israel to hold back on retaliating against Iran, two senior administration officials told CNN, a notable difference from April when Biden encouraged Israel to “take the win” following the successful interception of a barrage of Iranian drones and missiles.

Instead, Biden hopes Israel will adopt a measured approach that can both uphold its right to strike back while avoiding action that could prompt further retaliation and tip the region into full-scale war.

“No one’s saying don’t respond,” one senior administration official said. “No one’s saying, ‘Take the win.’”

How that message will be received by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remains to be seen, particularly as his political standing appears more assured following successful efforts to degrade Hezbollah in Lebanon.

“Iran made a big mistake, and it will pay for it,” he said at the start of a security cabinet meeting Tuesday.

Biden’s efforts at influencing his Israeli counterpart over the past year have been largely ineffective, and the two men have not spoken since August. Biden told reporters Wednesday he plans to speak to Netanyahu “relatively soon,” but didn’t appear to have a conversation on the books.

Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said discussions with Israel are ongoing and highlighted the risks of the situation.

“The region is really balancing on a knife’s edge and real concerns about an even broader escalation … which could imperil not just Israel, but our strategic interests as well,” Campbell said Wednesday.

The stakes of the moment could not be higher. Biden has watched with mounting concern as tensions in the region have spiraled. Attempts at brokering ceasefire agreements both in Gaza and along the Israel-Lebanon border have been largely fruitless. And the pending American presidential election has elevated the stakes of trying to manage the crisis.

The scale of Tuesday’s attack far outstripped the shower of projectiles Iran fired toward Israel in April. Israel and the United States were again successful in thwarting the missiles, in part due to a monthslong effort at coordinating a response. But the scale of the attack, which Biden called “brazen” in the hours after it happened, led American officials to conclude that a response from Israel was warranted.

“Israel has a right to respond. It should be a proportional response,” Biden told reporters Wednesday following a virtual call with leaders from the Group of 7 industrialized nations. He said the leaders were in agreement on that point and were preparing to slap new sanctions on Iran.

That is a different tone than mid-April, when US officials encouraged Israel to recognize that Iran had inflicted limited damage and urged them move on. Israel did respond against Iran, but in a limited way, striking an air defense system in Isfahan.

Now, a bigger Israeli counterattack is expected that could include a range of targets. The administration currently assesses it’s unlikely Israel would target Iran’s nuclear sites, though one senior official said Israel still hasn’t decided on where it might strike.

‘Taking a beat and thinking about it’

“They are doing the smart thing and taking a beat and thinking about it,” the official said.

Biden said Wednesday he does not support an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities. “The answer is no,” he responded when questioned about the prospect of Israel launching a retaliatory strike on sites related to Iran’s nuclear program.

Such a decision by Israel would almost certainly trigger the out-of-control conflict Biden has been working to prevent in the year since Hamas launched its attack on Israel on October 7. For Netanyahu and some his most hawkish advisers, however, it could eliminate what is viewed as an existential threat to Israel once and for all.

In the aftermath of this week’s attacks, the US is closely monitoring any activity surrounding Iran’s nuclear program, but they have not seen any recent changes, two US officials said.

A central US concern is the possibility of Iran turning to bolster its nuclear program after Israel successfully degraded its proxies in Lebanon and Gaza and foiled its ballistic missile attack.

While there are no signals currently that Iran will do that, or is planning to, US officials are still monitoring for the possibility of such a move.

There has not been a dramatic shift in Iran’s nuclear posture recently, though over the last year Iran has further produced fissile material for its nuclear program. Earlier this year Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Iran’s breakout time – the amount of time needed to produce enough nuclear material for a nuclear weapon – “is now probably one or two weeks.”

No Israelis were hurt or killed in Tuesday’s Iranian attack, which appeared to target military and intelligence facilities. One Palestinian man was killed in the West Bank by falling shrapnel from an interceptor missile launched by Israel, according to the hospital where he was treated.

With the two-day Jewish new year holiday Rosh Hashanah starting on Wednesday, there is some expectation an Israeli reprisal could still be days away.

“They have the holiday so that buys time and space,” one of the senior US officials said.

Yet waiting days for a response also has the effect of prolonging anticipation in a region already on a razor’s edge, especially as Israel’s operation against Hezbollah continues. CNN reported Wednesday that US officials and Israeli believe about 50% of the Iranian proxy group’s arsenal has been destroyed.

Inside the White House, there is acute recognition that how the next weeks play out will have some effect on the presidential election. There is little Vice President Kamala Harris — the Democratic nominee — wants less than a full-scale regional war that her opponent can use to accuse the Biden administration of incompetence.

A close observer of American politics, Netanyahu is similarly aware of how Israel’s actions in the coming weeks could impact the race. Some Western officials believe he sees an opening in the high-stakes political moment to take decisive action against Iran, aware that Biden and Harris have faced criticism from all sides on their handling of the war.

For her part, Harris emerged Tuesday afternoon to read a carefully worded statement about the Iranian strikes in Israel.

“I’m clear eyed,” she said, not diverting from prepared remarks. “Iran is a destabilizing, dangerous force in the Middle East, and today’s attack on Israel only further demonstrates that fact.”