Using its spy satellites, U.S. intelligence obtained information about Israel’s planned counterattack on Iran that some official then leaked, and which subsequently appeared in Iranian state media. The IDF has likely delayed its strike to come up with an alternative plan as a result. More recent reports about who was responsible for the leak remain unconfirmed, but, argue the editors of National Review, something is definitely amiss within the current national-security apparatus:

[N]o individual who has had extensive contact with Iranian intelligence and diplomatic officials, and who has deferred to the direction of those officials before, should have ever been put in a sensitive position in the first place. The Biden administration has ignored this rather simple rule.

The most glaring example of its questionable handling of the Iran portfolio is [the] Iran envoy Robert Malley’s continued employment by the State Department amid a probe into his handling of classified materials and the possibility that he shared information with the regime. . . . Possibly worse than Malley’s appointment is that of Ariane Tabatabai, an academic turned State Department and Pentagon official. She was part of the now-infamous Iran Experts Initiative—a program used by Tehran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to cultivate relationships with foreign academics who could carry water for the regime.

[S]ince October 7, pro-Hamas ideologues within the State Department have labored to leak information that would help their cause and damage Israel’s war effort. . . . The president was wrong to appoint these officials in the first place, and he should have fired them long ago.

Noah Rothman provides a worthwhile reminder of why a nuclear Iran is a threat not just to Israel, but to the United States:

For one, Iran is the foremost state sponsor of terrorism on earth. It exports terrorists and arms throughout the region and beyond, and there are no guarantees that it won’t play a similarly reckless game with nuclear material. At minimum, the terrorist elements in Iran’s orbit would be emboldened by Iran’s new nuclear might. Their numbers would surely grow, as would their willingness to court risk.

Iran maintains the largest arsenal of ballistic missiles in the region. It can certainly deliver a warhead to targets inside the Middle East, and it’s fast-tracking the development of space-launch vehicles that can threaten the U.S. mainland. Even if Tehran were a rational actor that could be reliably deterred, an acknowledged Iranian bomb would kick-start a race toward nuclear proliferation in the region. The Saudis, the Turks, the Egyptians, and others would probably be compelled to seek their own nuclear deterrents, leading to an infinitely more complex security environment.

In the meantime, Iran would be able to blackmail the West, allowing it occasionally to choke off the trade and energy exports that transit the Persian Gulf and to engage in far more reckless acts of international terrorism.

As for the possible consequences, Rothman observes:

Iranian retaliation might be measured with the understanding that if it’s not properly calibrated, the U.S. and Israel could begin taking out Iranian command-and-control targets next. If the symbols of the regime begin crumbling, the oppressed Iranian people might find the courage to finish the job. If there’s anything the mullahs fear more than the U.S. military, it’s their own citizens.