The editors of the Wall Street Journal rightly call the Biden administration’s new policy an arms embargo. (Subscription required.)

The administration would like to focus on the denial of 2,000-pound bombs, which it says are too destructive. Never mind that a professional force can employ them in a manner that restricts the radius of damage. Mr. Biden is also halting a shipment of 500-pound bombs and holding up Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs), which convert unguided bombs into precision “smart” bombs. Politico reports that small-diameter bombs are being withheld. The Journal adds that the Biden administration has been sitting on a deal that includes tank shells and mortar rounds.

The message from the White House, in other words, is that Israel shouldn’t have large bombs or small bombs, dumb bombs or smart bombs, and let it do without tanks and artillery too. Now isn’t a good time to send the weapons, you see, because Israel would use them.

But it’s even worse than that: withholding the JDAMs in effect encourages Israel to use dumb bombs in instances when precision weapons would be more effective, and less likely to cause harm to bystanders. And then there is the twisted logic behind the decision:

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and other U.S. officials explain that the goal of the embargo—which they present as a “pause” or “review”—is to prevent a wider Israeli attack on the Hamas stronghold of Rafah. This is the terrorists’ reward for using civilians as human shields.

It hasn’t been four weeks since Iran attacked Israel directly, in the largest drone attack in history, plus 150 or so ballistic and cruise missiles. . . . Israel needs to be ready now, and its enemies need to know the U.S. stands behind it.

At the moment, Hizballah’s superiors in Tehran probably aren’t giving much thought to the militia’s next move. More likely, they are focused on the fact that their country’s president, Ebrahim Raisi, along with the foreign minister, may have been killed in a helicopter crash near the Iran-Azerbaijan border. Iranians set off fireworks to celebrate the possible death of this man known as “butcher of Tehran” for his role in executing dissidents. Shay Khatiri explains what will happen next:

If the president is dead or unable to perform his duties for longer than two months, the first vice-president, the speaker of the parliament, and the chief justice, with the consent of the supreme leader, form a council to choose the succession mechanism. In effect, this means that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei will decide [how to proceed]. Either a new election is called, or Khamenei will dictate that the council chooses a single person to avoid an election in time of crisis.

Whatever happens next, however, Raisi’s “hard landing” will mark the first chapter in a game of musical chairs that will consume the Islamic Republic for months and will set the stage not only for the post-Raisi era, but the post-Khamenei one as well.

As for the inevitable speculation that Raisi’s death wasn’t an accident: everything I have read so far suggests that it was. Still, that its foremost enemy will be distracted by a succession struggle is good news for Israel. And it wouldn’t be terrible if Iran’s leaders suspect that the Mossad just might have taken out Raisi. For all their rhetoric about martyrdom, I doubt they relish the prospect of becoming martyrs themselves.