The Samson Option, Israel’s doctrine of last-resort nuclear retaliation, is no longer a theoretical contingency. At the end of seven weeks of war in the Persian Gulf, the conditions that might trigger it are not emerging; they may already be present. What began as a joint US/Israeli campaign for regime change and decapitation of Iran’s leadership has collapsed into a protracted strategic failure. The Strait of Hormuz remains closed. US bases across the Gulf have been evacuated. American influence in Iraq has fractured. And just days ago, a botched American operation near Isfahan, intended to cripple Iran’s nuclear program, ended in humiliation, exposing the limits of Western power. In this vacuum, the question is not whether Israel has nuclear weapons. Everyone knows it does: approximately 200 warheads, deliverable by air, land, and sea. The opacity is diplomatic, not factual. The question is whether Israel will finally use them.
Israel has never officially declared its nuclear arsenal, but it has tacitly admitted its existence through decades of signals, leaks, and strategic ambiguity. This is not a secret; it is a policy choice. That choice was always predicated on one assumption: that the United States would provide the conventional shield allowing Israel to keep the nuclear sword sheathed. That assumption is now breaking. Even with full American support, Israel cannot defeat Iran. The Islamic Republic’s depth, dispersal, and asymmetric capabilities render a decisive conventional victory impossible. And without American support, Israel does not merely struggle, it faces a significant defeat. This is the new reality.
We will use the word “negotiations” for the recent circus/charade/delusion in Islamabad for lack of a better name. These negotiations have further exposed Trump’s desperation. It is not that he flipflopped after a few hours, that is to be expected (and presumably the Iranians did expect it) but rather the almost bipolar, mad, shrieking tone in which he did so. Perhaps he is aware that this war will be his legacy. And that legacy will not be pretty. At this point he is left with three options:
1) Boots on the ground – the recent Isfahan debacle would suggest he is not too keen on that just yet
2) Follow through on the “bomb Iran to the stone age” threat
3) Start distancing himself from Bibi and the war
Were the “mixed signals” around the recently announced (and quickly broken) ceasefire an attempt by Trump to distance himself from Bibi and the war? This would of course have multiple ramifications, but perhaps the most important is how Israel would react in terms of strategy. Without full US backing, clearly Israel would consider it’s position in the war to be far closer to existential.
After seven weeks of sustained Iranian missile and drone attacks, Israeli air defense interceptors are running low. Replenishment requires US logistics, political will, and industrial capacity, all of which could be questioned. Iran’s underground facilities, mobile launchers, and proxy networks have proven resilient. Israel cannot bomb its way to victory. Therefore, if conventional options exhaust themselves, the logic of the Samson Option might become seductive: if the state cannot win by fighting, it can ensure its enemies do not survive.
This calculus is not tempered by ethical hesitation. The idea that Israeli leaders agonize over the morality of nuclear use misunderstands their worldview. In Gaza, Israel has demonstrated a willingness to inflict catastrophic destruction on civilian infrastructure. Iran is framed not as a rival state but as Amalek, the biblical enemy commanded to be erased from memory. When Israeli leaders invoke Amalek, they are not speaking in metaphor. They are invoking a mandate for total war. The restraint on Israeli nuclear use has never been conscience; it has been consequence, specifically, the fear of losing American political, military, and diplomatic cover. If that cover has been withdrawn or reduced, the reason for restraint is gone.
Christian Zionist allies in Washington amplify this dynamic. For them, the current conflict is not a tragedy to be ended but a prophecy to be fulfilled. Apocalyptic narratives frame escalation as divine necessity, not strategic error. This external validation can subtly shift the moral weight of escalation, making the unthinkable feel ordained. When American officials influenced by this theology occupy key positions, including in the Pentagon, the threshold for accepting Israeli escalation lowers. So even if, in general, the US were to take a step back, very important elements of the US system would still be fully onboard with maximalist Israeli demands and actions.
The danger is not that Israel will “go rogue” in a fit of irrationality. The danger is that its leadership will make a cold, calculated decision: if the United States is pulling away, if conventional defeat is imminent, and if Iran is Amalek, then using nuclear weapons is not madness, it is strategy. The Samson Option was designed to ensure that Israel would never face extinction alone. But its very existence creates a perverse incentive: the more Israel appears cornered, the more likely it may lash out with everything it has.
There is another strategic variation on this as well. Israel will have ensured that America knows that Israel might go nuclear if cornered. In theory this would be a factor that binds America to Israel, to make sure Israel doesn’t go too rogue. But, as we have seen, there are elements in America who may desire a nuclear attack on Iran, but perhaps don’t want to have their hands too dirty – much better to have Israel take the blame.
This is not a scenario of rational actors weighing options in a vacuum. This is a scenario where ideology, theology, military desperation, and political abandonment converge. If Israel uses nuclear weapons, it will not be because it has lost its mind. It will be because it concluded, “rationally” (I emphasize the quotation marks), that survival required the destruction of its enemy, and that the world would ultimately accept it as a “fait accompli”. The taboo against nuclear use has held for eighty years not because leaders are virtuous, but because the consequences were too horrible to contemplate.
In the Middle East, it may be that some are getting ready to contemplate the unthinkable as we speak.
Reprinted with permission from Ashes of Pompeii.
