Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is due in Washington this week seeking a US push to remove Iran’s stock of enriched uranium abroad and to curb Tehran’s ballistic missile capabilities. The request, timed for a face-to-face with President Trump, signals Jerusalem’s desire to translate intelligence assessments into immediate American diplomatic and possibly operational pressure.
Israeli security officials privately say Iran has begun dispersing some of its missiles eastward to complicate efforts to target them, and that if Tehran is not struck its missile inventory could climb to roughly 2,000 warheads, restoring stocks to levels seen before last June’s attacks. Jerusalem also contends Israel’s integrated air-defence systems can intercept the vast majority of missile types in Iran’s inventory with up to a 90% success rate, but the harder problem remains destroying launchers and missiles before they are fired.
Domestic debate in Israel has sharpened around the second‑order consequences of any US action. Israeli planners worry that a US-led strike or stepped-up pressure on Iran could prompt Hezbollah in Lebanon and Houthi forces in Yemen to renew missile and rocket attacks on Israel, widening the conflict beyond direct Israel–Iran confrontation.
Israeli technical experts are engaging publicly with Tehran’s recent missile disclosures, with some disputing the veracity of Iranian performance claims. That public scepticism serves both to reassure domestic audiences and to shape an international narrative that Iranian missile advances may be less game-changing than Tehran asserts.
The larger context is an enduring Israeli anxiety about Iran’s ability to threaten the Israeli homeland and to shorten any nuclear ‘breakout’ timeline. For Jerusalem, transferring enriched uranium out of Iran would materially reduce the risk that Tehran could quickly fashion a weapon if it chose to, while curbs on delivery systems would limit Iran’s capacity for coercion via long‑range strikes or proxy resupply.
But pressing Washington for such measures confronts practical and political limits. Moving enriched uranium out of Iran requires either Tehran’s consent or a compelling multilateral mechanism; it also risks being portrayed by Iran as a prelude to coercive action. Proposals to limit missile stocks will run into the same reality that missiles are easier to hide, disperse and harden than fissile material is to secure.
For the United States, the ask places the administration between allied pressure and the heavier lift of mobilising international cooperation. Washington can amplify sanctions and intelligence sharing, but any kinetic attempt to degrade Iran’s missile forces or remove material would raise the prospect of a regional escalation that draws in non-state actors and threatens global commerce, particularly if hostilities spill into the Red Sea or the Gulf.
Absent a new diplomatic architecture that provides Iran with political cover while reducing its weapons potential, expect a mix of stepped‑up covert disruption, intensified sanctions enforcement and diplomatic nudges rather than a clean, verifiable extraction of uranium or comprehensive disarmament of Iran’s missile forces. The trip to Washington is therefore likely to set the tone for a fraught period of signalling and risk management across the Middle East.