New Book Details Iran’s Path to a Nuclear Bomb

Edwin Black’s new book, Israel Strikes Iran: Operation Rising Lion – The 20-Year Backstory, is a must-read. Don’t let the fact that you are unlikely to understand the details (unless you are a defense analyst or a nuclear weapons specialist) deter you.

The lessons are in plain English.

• Iran’s intention to enrich uranium and build nuclear weapons was clear long before the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
• Iran’s scientists were pretty good. With the help of other countries, plus funding by the West in the form of “sanctions relief” or waivers, or by ignoring violations of sanctions, the Iranian scientists created weapons and plans.
• Iran cheated before, during, and after the JCPOA.
• A lot of people knew that — and didn’t act on what they knew.
• But there were other people, and we should be forever grateful to them.

Black, the award-winning investigative journalist and New York Times (NYT) bestselling author, has been watching and writing about Iranian nuclear progress for decades.

The introductory chapter, “The Twenty-year Wait,” is Black’s timeline, putting forward bits and pieces of information that culminated in Operation Rising Lion. He notes, “Israel Strikes Iran has been almost ready to publish for years … I wrote all but the final chapter material back in 2021 and 2022.”

Yes, it is a bit self-aggrandizing, but he’s more than entitled. Author of a dozen books — including the terrifying IBM and the Holocaust and equally terrifying Financing the Flames — Black is the master of the back story.

You know the Russian S-300 air defense system, right? But did you know that in 2008, Greece, which owned S-300s, held joint Air Force exercises with Israel? The NYT reported on them, but Black added, in The Cutting Edge News (TCEN) in July of that year, “Pivotal information … has remained below the radar. By swarming its jets into the S-300s massive electronics, Israel was able to record invaluable information about defeating, jamming and circumventing the Russian system.” Oh.

The article outlines Israel’s leaps in air superiority, but notes that Israel presumed heavy Iranian retaliation. “Israel considers itself to be in a no-win situation because years of sanctions and intense diplomacy have not stopped Iran’s cyclonic nuclear progress…More than one Israeli official has stated that the only thing worse than attacking Iran is not attacking Iran.”

Then his 2025 update.

Iran’s home-built air defense system, Bavar, was rushed to deployment. Israel’s air defense systems surpassed all prior understanding and, Iran’s April 2024 barrage of 30 cruise missiles, 120 ballistic missiles, and 170 drones managed to injure a seven-year-old Bedouin girl in Arad. Israel’s retaliation was much more effective.

Israel eliminated Hamas’ Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, carried out the pager attacks on Hezbollah operatives on September 17, and then took out Hezbollah headquarters in Beirut on the 27th. Iran responded and Israel responded.

Now you start to see how this works.

Chapter Two is the story of the development of the Massive Ordnance Perpetrator (MOP) bunker buster, which began in 2004, as Black reported in a TCEN story in September 2009. You don’t need to understand the details to understand their success.

But in the 2025 update, you will get the details, and — as hard as it is to imagine — discover that hundreds, if not thousands, of DOD personnel, government officials, and staffers kept their mouths shut about it for more than 20 years. Spoiler alert: Jump to the last chapter and read the paean to our people by General Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The result: “Operation Midnight Hammer played out as one of the most sophisticated and synchronized military operations since WWII… within the space of minutes, twelve MOPS dropped on Fordow, two MOPs plunged into the Natanz facility, and the Tomahawks pounded Isfahan.”

The development of Iran’s bomb is Chapter 3, starting with an article in The Times of Israel in 2012. The article also shows the development of the Shehab-3 missile. The chapter starts with Pakistan, but it is actually a timeline on Israel’s ops inside Iran — from stealing the nuclear archive in 2018, to the assassination of Iranian scientists, to sabotage of facilities across the country. It details American policy toward Iran — from Obama through Trump 1 through Biden and into Trump 2. For 12 of those years (guess which), the US doesn’t look too good. But remember, during all that time, the military establishment was improving MOPs and plans — silently.

As you read on, you get a comforting feeling, actually, that people in the US and Israel were determined to protect us all.

Chapters Four and Five don’t require much technical knowledge. They are the best chapters and maybe should have come first — we know the end of the story. But as you read them, everything you read before comes into focus. All the groundwork, the science, the diplomacy and lack thereof, the activities carried out in secret and in public, the coordination and cooperation between the United States and Israel becomes the stage on which Operation Rising Lion and Operation Midnight Hammer played out.

Don’t cheer yet. Black is nothing if not a realist, ending with a cautionary note: “The most important warning of this book is contained not in the text written above, but the text yet to be written below … Our destiny paragraph is yet to be written.”

Wait for it.

Shoshana Bryen is Senior Director of The Jewish Policy Center and Editor of inFOCUS Quarterly.

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