Before and after his election, the president has signaled his intention both to improve relations with Moscow and to take a harder line than Barack Obama against Tehran. These two goals, as Reuel Marc Gerecht points out, are contradictory, although it remains to be seen how various statements will translate into policy. Examining the close alignment of Russian and Iranian goals, Gerecht surveys America’s options:

Vladimir Putin’s alliance with Shiite Iran is . . . a smart strategic move since Persian power has no effective Arab counterweight. All the Sunni Arabs combined—even imagining such a coalition seems surreal—are weaker than the Islamic Republic. The closer Iran is to Russia, the more Arab states, particularly the oil-rich Gulf states, must treat Russia with greater respect and deference. . . . [For its part, Iran’s] clerical regime—especially the Revolutionary Guard Corps—sees Putin’s Russia as anti-American. [Meanwhile, the influential head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization], Ali Akbar Salehi—ever the clever boy—highlights the growing tension between Trump’s pro-Putin sentiments and his maintenance of sanctions against Russia. . . .

If the Republican Congress and president implement new [anti-Iran] sanctions and Tehran responds by reconnecting centrifuges or throwing out International Atomic Energy Agency monitors, the French, British, and even the Germans are unlikely to cheer the Iranians on. As much as they may hate and blame Trump for destroying the short-term tranquility of the Iran deal, if the mullahs start enriching [uranium] again to dangerous levels or excluding the IAEA, reality will return. Fear of American and Israeli military action will snap back. The Europeans, who are paralyzed with fear of America abandoning the defense of the Old World, will, however reluctantly, support the re-imposition of sanctions against Tehran. They have no other choice. . . .

Ultimately, [however], there is one overriding question: does President Trump believe that preventive military strikes against the clerical regime’s atomic sites would be better than living with Obama’s agreement, with all its flaws and constraints on American action?

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.