While the American president-elect has suggested that he will “dismantle” the deeply flawed agreement to limit the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program, Joseph Lieberman and Mark Wallace argue that U.A. interests would be better served by first enforcing it—as the Obama administration has refrained from doing—and then trying to renegotiate it:

To date, the Iranian regime has made clear it has no intent to honor the spirit or letter of the JCPOA, [as the deal is formally known]. Iran’s pattern of reckless behavior has accelerated over the past year. Its anti-American, anti-Israel, and anti-Arab rhetoric has grown stronger, and its actions have matched its rhetoric. . . . In June, the State Department again designated Iran the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. . . .

With U.S. leadership, a new coalition [including Israel and America’s Arab allies] could address the policy omissions in the JCPOA by, for example, securing an agreement with Iran to curb its regional aggression, state sponsorship of terrorism, and domestic repression of human rights. In exchange, Iran could be given broad-based sanctions relief and even normalization of relations.

However, if Iran refuses, the United States and our allies will have great leverage to hold Tehran accountable under the existing accord. Iran has already twice exceeded its allotted limit for heavy water; it has test-fired multiple ballistic missiles, in defiance of UN Resolution 2231, which endorses the nuclear deal; and, according to German intelligence estimates, Iran has continued its “illegal proliferation-sensitive procurement activities” at a “quantitatively high level.” The United States and its partners have closely adhered to the letter of the JCPOA; they should demand that Iran do the same. . . .

If Iran does not change course, the president-elect should make clear he is prepared to impose a new round of comprehensive secondary sanctions against Iran—and then to walk away, with cause, from the JCPOA. Then it will be time, as the president-elect has said, to tear up this agreement

Early Friday morning, Israel attacked military installations near the Iranian cities of Isfahan and nearby Natanz, the latter being one of the hubs of the country’s nuclear program. Jerusalem is not taking credit for the attack, and none of the details are too certain, but it seems that the attack involved multiple drones, likely launched from within Iran, as well as one or more missiles fired from Syrian or Iraqi airspace. Strikes on Syrian radar systems shortly beforehand probably helped make the attack possible, and there were reportedly strikes on Iraq as well.

Iran itself is downplaying the attack, but the S-300 air-defense batteries in Isfahan appear to have been destroyed or damaged. This is a sophisticated Russian-made system positioned to protect the Natanz nuclear installation. In other words, Israel has demonstrated that Iran’s best technology can’t protect the country’s skies from the IDF. As Yossi Kuperwasser puts it, the attack, combined with the response to the assault on April 13,

clarified to the Iranians that whereas we [Israelis] are not as vulnerable as they thought, they are more vulnerable than they thought. They have difficulty hitting us, but we have no difficulty hitting them.

Nobody knows exactly how the operation was carried out. . . . It is good that a question mark hovers over . . . what exactly Israel did. Let’s keep them wondering. It is good for deniability and good for keeping the enemy uncertain.

The fact that we chose targets that were in the vicinity of a major nuclear facility but were linked to the Iranian missile and air forces was a good message. It communicated that we can reach other targets as well but, as we don’t want escalation, we chose targets nearby that were involved in the attack against Israel. I think it sends the message that if we want to, we can send a stronger message. Israel is not seeking escalation at the moment.