But there are things we can do right now, including:

Harden U.S. electric grids and other life-sustaining critical infrastructures against a nuclear EMP attack, which is described in Iran’s military doctrine and would be the regime’s most easily executed and most damaging nuclear threat.

The White House and STRATCOM should regard Iran as a nuclear-missile threat right now, increase scrutiny by national technical means of verification and by human intelligence to locate nuclear-weapons capabilities, and prepare preemptive options should action become necessary.

Strengthen National Missile Defenses and especially deploy modern space-based defenses. For example, the 1990s Brilliant Pebbles project, canceled by the Clinton administration, could begin deployment in five years, cost an estimated $20 billion in today’s dollars, and intercept essentially all ballistic missiles ranging more than a few-hundred miles, including from Russia and China. Our national survival should not depend only upon striking first or deterrence. The American people would rather be defended than avenged.