Target Tehran: How Israel Is Using Sabotage, Cyberwarfare, Assassination—and Secret Diplomacy—to Stop a Nuclear Iran and Create a New Middle East

Jerusalem Post journalists Bob and Evyatar survey in their vigorous debut outing Israel’s 20-year clandestine war against Iran’s nuclear program. Among other episodes, the authors detail several bombings of the Natanz uranium-enrichment plant (in 2021, the Israelis managed to embed explosives in the plant’s foreign-supplied equipment before it was shipped to Iran); the Stuxnet computer-worm attack that wrecked hundreds of enrichment centrifuges at Natanz, first detected by the Iranians in 2010; numerous assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists; and the 2018 theft of an archive detailing secret Iranian nuclear activities, which helped President Trump justify abrogating the Iranian nuclear treaty negotiated by the Obama administration. As a complement to the cloak-and-dagger, Israel also waged a patient campaign to forge closer ties with Sunni Arab countries that feared Iran’s nuclear ambitions, culminating in the 2020 Abraham Accords normalizing relations with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Drawing on interviews with Mossad officials, the authors’ well-paced narrative steeps readers in intricate spy craft and high-wire diplomacy, making these events feel like a true-life James Bond mission that’s carefully calibrated to shape American foreign policy and Middle East geopolitics. The result is an engrossing look at one of the most effective covert-ops projects of recent times. (Sept.)