Israel Expert Forecasts Iran’s Next Move

As tensions escalate in the Middle East after Israeli strikes targeted Iranian military and nuclear sites, Heritage Foundation experts hit the airwaves Friday to discuss the latest developments.

Victoria Coates, vice president of Heritage’s Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy, discussed the conflict on “Fox & Friends First” with Carley Shimkus and Todd Piro.

Her interview transcript has been lightly edited.

Carley Shimkus: What do you think the outcome will be? Did Israel set Iran’s nuclear program back years, decades? Could it have been eliminated entirely in this?  

Victoria Coates: The critical thing for the American people waking up this morning is that we are materially closer to enforcing President Trump’s red line: that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.

It’s very simple. He reiterated it to Brett [Baier] last night. This regime, that chants “Death to America and death to Israel,” can’t have a nuclear weapon. And he did everything by the book.  

During the Biden administration, we had appeasement. We had this advancement in their nuclear program. That is all on them for allowing that to happen.  

But [Trump] wrote a letter to the supreme leader. He engaged in negotiations. The Iranians are the ones who kept saying no.  

Last night, the Israelis took action into their own hands. The administration was clear we did not participate in this.

The Israelis really did take material steps to degrading that nuclear program, despite the fact that we have stated repeatedly that we did not participate in this. 

Todd Piro: Do you expect Iran to retaliate against us? 

Coates: That’s always possible.  

But I think what we also saw last night is how vulnerable Iran is. They could do nothing.  

Two hundred Israeli planes flew hundreds of miles and hit 100 targets all over Iran, not just in Tehran, but in their nuclear sites as well.  

[Iran is] somewhat limited in what they can do. They fired off about 100 drones. Israel seems pretty confident they can shoot those down. We will probably have a role in supporting Israel, in case Iran does something bigger.  

But from a historical perspective, Iran generally backs down when you take strong action against them, be it Operation Praying Mantis, for example, under President Reagan in 1988. In 2020, when President Trump rightly took out Qasem Soleimani, whose successor also was taken out last night, the head of the IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp], they really didn’t push back hard.  

What we have to do is be very vigilant now, very concerned. Secretary [of Defense Pete] Hegseth said all of our contingencies were being attended to in the region and beyond in case of Iranian retaliation.  

But I think we can also trust the Israelis to have a handle on this. 

 
Shimkus:  Israel’s spy agency, Mossad, was conducting operations inside Iran, including hunting for leadership targets in Tehran. That means that when it comes to Iranian leadership, they are once again reminded that no one is safe. 

 
Coates: Exactly. The Israelis are just saying, “We can reach out and touch you whenever we want to.”  

The other critical thing is how much Israel has done since Oct. 7 to degrade Iran’s other tools in the region—for example, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Assad regime in Syria. These things are all gone for Israel. 

This notion of this huge regional conflagration, the seven-front war, Israel has done the hard work to prevent that from happening, from not dragging the United States into a war, and now not to face the same kinds of tools they would have faced two years ago in the event that this had been necessary.  

That is another really important part of this picture. They’re not as concerned about all of the precision-guided missiles that used to be targeted at them out of Lebanon.  

Those are gone now, due to these kinds of very dramatic operations that we’re seeing the Mossad conduct in Iran today.  

Piro: Will Iran be able to complete its nuclear program and get a weaponized nuke in light of the fact that six scientists were wiped out last night? Do they have the personnel to complete their mission? 

Coates: It’s certainly much harder now.  

Israel is looking at this holistically. Yes, they want to damage the infrastructure and the missiles and the missile defense and the terrorist proxies but also take out the scientists. Iran has had every opportunity to prevent this from happening.

If they really didn’t want a nuclear weapon, why wouldn’t they have welcomed the inspectors? Why wouldn’t they have opened up these scientists to the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency], to investigations of what they’re up to? 

They could have avoided all of this. President Trump has offered them so many off-ramps, and they are the ones who said no. They are the ones who brought this on themselves.  

They’re going to have a much harder time putting it back together without that kind of technical expertise that was eradicated last night.

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