Archaeologists recently uncovered a 1,000-foot segment of a two-millennium-old aqueduct in Israel’s capital—the longest continuous section found to date. The Jerusalem Post reports:

The Israel Antiquities Authority excavation directors Ofer Shyam and Ruth Cohen note that the Jerusalem aqueduct was built to meet the ancient city’s growing water demands. “In the late days of the Second Temple, the city of Jerusalem grew significantly. The Temple had been rebuilt and the water that flowed in conduits and cisterns was no longer sufficient for the thousands of pilgrims and residents,” they explain. “Water needed to be brought to the city from a distance.”

So, in order to meet Jerusalem’s growing need for water, the Hasmoneans, and then King Herod, built two aqueducts to Jerusalem. One of the aqueducts, “the upper aqueduct” channeled water to the upper city, what is presently the Jewish and Armenian Quarters of the Old City. The other, “the lower aqueduct,” brought water to the Temple.

Shyam and Cohen describe these aqueducts as being “among the largest and most complex water systems in the Land of Israel—and indeed, in the ancient world.” The aqueducts were remarkable feats of engineering, each traversing the roughly ten kilometers from Bethlehem Springs, where the water originated, to Jerusalem.

If Iran succeeds in obtaining nuclear weapons, the war in Gaza, let alone the protests on college campuses, will seem like a minor complication. Jonathan Schachter fears that this danger could be much more imminent than decisionmakers in Jerusalem and Washington believe. In his view, Israel seems to be repeating the mistake that allowed it to be taken by surprise on Simchat Torah of 2023 and Yom Kippur of 1973: putting too much faith in an intelligence concept that could be wrong.

Israel and the United States apparently believe that despite Iran’s well-documented progress in developing capabilities necessary for producing and delivering nuclear weapons, as well as its extensive and ongoing record of violating its international nuclear obligations, there is no acute crisis because building a bomb would take time, would be observable, and could be stopped by force. Taken together, these assumptions and their moderating impact on Israeli and American policy form a new Iran concept reminiscent of its 1973 namesake and of the systemic failures that preceded the October 7 massacre.

Meanwhile, most of the restrictions put in place by the 2015 nuclear deal will expire by the end of next year, rendering the question of Iran’s adherence moot. And the forces that could be taking action aren’t:

The European Union regularly issues boilerplate press releases asserting its members’ “grave concern.” American decisionmakers and spokespeople have created the unmistakable impression that their reservations about the use of force are stronger than their commitment to use force to prevent an Iranian atomic bomb. At the same time, the U.S. refuses to enforce its own sanctions comprehensively: Iranian oil exports (especially to China) and foreign-currency reserves have ballooned since January 2021, when the Biden administration took office.

Israel’s response has also been sluggish and ambiguous. Despite its oft-stated policy of never allowing a nuclear Iran, Israel’s words and deeds have sent mixed messages to allies and adversaries—perhaps inadvertently reinforcing the prevailing sense in Washington and elsewhere that Iran’s nuclear efforts do not present an exigent crisis.