Israel faces a dilemma of historic proportions as it decides how to respond to Iran’s weekend attack.

On the one hand, the Iranian barrage of over 300 missiles and armed drones fired at Israel on the weekend has given the Jewish state an invitation to address its deepest fear. Iran is working towards creating a nuclear bomb. Israel for decades has feared the day when the ayatollahs achieve their aim. By launching its first direct military assault on Israeli territory, the Islamic Republic now has given Israel licence to strike back. And the Iranian nuclear facilities present a very tempting target.

Illustration: Dionne Gain

The latest indications are that it has made serious progress. “They have already taken most of the steps they would need to take” to build a nuclear weapon, says David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security and formerly an inspector of the Iranian facilities for the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency.

Tehran’s greatest obstacle had been how to create highly enriched uranium but now “they have solved that problem, even better than they expected,” Albright told the Washington Post last week. “You can tell from their statements that they are well aware of what they have.”

The IAEA still has limited access to the Iranian facilities. According to the Post, the most recent inspection, made in February, reported a stockpile of about 120 kilograms of Uranium-235 enriched to 60 per cent purity, near weapons grade, in Iran’s labs – enough to make at least three bombs.

Israel has its own nuclear weapons, perhaps the world’s worst-kept nuclear secret. So it has a deterrent against an Iranian nuclear strike. And it has time; it’s estimated that while Tehran already has the makings of a bomb, it would need perhaps two years or more to mount it on a deliverable warhead.

But could a responsible national leader bypass a rare opportunity to disarm his country’s nemesis of the existential threat of nuclear weapons? It wouldn’t be clean or complete. While some of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure would be vulnerable to an Israeli air strike, much of it is buried deep underground. Israel probably could degrade but not destroy it, and Iran would feel obliged to retaliate. It easily could develop into a full-scale war.

If Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chose to strike Iran’s nuclear production facilities, he likely would have the support of some important neighbours. Recall that key Sunni Arab states, notably Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, consider the Shiite regime in Iran their greatest threat.