Efraim Inbar nails it in this Op-Ed for Bloomberg. Here’s a bit of it:

The upheaval in the Arab world has damaged Israel’s strategic environment. Its peace treaty with Egypt, a pillar of national security for more than three decades, is in question. More important, the events in the Arab world have deflected attention from Israel’s most feared scenario, a nuclear Iran, playing into the Iranian strategy to buy time in order to present the world with a nuclear fait accompli. Israel’s leaders fear that the international response is now unlikely to impact Iranian policy, at a point when its nuclear program is so advanced.

Only in November 2011 did the International Atomic Energy Agency, an institution that for years refused to call a spade a spade, publish a report voicing its concern over Iranian activities that do not easily fit with those of a civilian program. And only in January, did the European Union and the U.S. declare new sanctions that could have a significant effect on Iran’s economy. For Israel, this may have come too late.

Officials in Tel Aviv have tried to alert the West to the dangers of a nuclear Iran for more than a decade. They argued that Iran would cause the technology to proliferate in the region as states such as Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia sought such weapons, turning a multipolar nuclear Middle East into a strategic nightmare. A nuclear-armed Iran would strengthen its hegemony in the energy sector by its mere location along the oil-rich Persian Gulf and the Caspian Basin.

It would also result in the West’s loss of the Central Asian states, which would either gravitate toward Iran or try to secure a nuclear umbrella with Russia or China, countries much closer to the region than the U.S. is. A regime in Tehran emboldened by the possession of nuclear weapons would become more active in supporting radical Shiite elements in Iraq and agitating those communities in the Persian Gulf states.
Bombs to Proxies

Worse, since Iran backs terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, it may be reckless enough to transfer nuclear bombs to such proxy organizations. They would have no moral constraints on detonating such a device in a European or American harbor. Iran’s nuclear program — coupled with further improvements in Iranian missiles — would initially put most European capitals, and eventually North American ones, within range of a potential attack. Read the rest