Iran has been stringing along international watchdogs and civilized nations for years regarding its nuclear program. The nation has now paid a steep price for its deceit and deception.

Early Friday, Israel launched a series of audacious attacks deep inside Iran in an effort to destroy the nation’s military and nuclear infrastructure. Operation Rising Lion, as it was called, left several high-ranking Iranian military leaders dead along with a handful of scientists.

Video footage showed flames and smoke at Iran’s primary nuclear enrichment complex in Natanz and military bases near Tehran. An airport in Tabriz, a city in northwest Iran, was also struck and damaged. The New York Times reported that underground missile bases were also targeted in the western part of the country.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed that more aggressive actions were in the works.

“Israel’s spy agency Mossad,” The Wall Street Journal reported, “was conducting operations inside Iran, including hunting for leadership targets in Tehran, a person familiar with the operations said.”

Iran retaliated later Friday by firing hundreds of ballistic missiles into Israel. CNN reported that White House officials confirmed that the United States “is helping to intercept Iranian missiles and drones as they are launched against Israel.” President Donald Trump, who spoke with Netanyahu shortly before the attacks, said “of course” the United States backs the Jewish state.

The apparent success of Israel’s complex operation is a deep embarrassment for Iran. The attack comes just eight months after Israel took out a significant portion of Iran’s air defenses and essentially neutered Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy, with a bold cellphone gambit that killed and injured scores of terrorists. It’s not clear if Iran is even capable at this point of mounting a prolonged military campaign. It no longer has its terror underlings to run interference.

It’s important to put the Israeli move into context. On Thursday, the International Atomic Energy Agency publicly declared that Iran was out of compliance with the nuclear nonproliferation treaty and had also “consistently failed to provide information about undeclared nuclear material and activities at multiple locations,” The Times reported. The agency essentially accused Iranian officials of playing a version of Whac-A-Mole by destroying and moving nuclear sites once inspectors sought access.

In response to the agency’s condemnation, a defiant Iran threatened to ramp up efforts to build nuclear weapons. Israel decided it couldn’t let that happen.

Iran has had every opportunity to peacefully cooperate and reach a deal over its nuclear program. It has instead chosen to obfuscate, lie and cover up. In the wake of the attack, “Iran could still try to race for the nuclear bomb,” CNN’s Nick Paton Walsh wrote Friday. “But its faltering defenses and clear, humiliating infiltration by Israel’s intelligence, make that a long shot.”

Israel has done the civilized world a service. The choice for Iran is clear: Come clean and get serious about nuclear negotiations or face further military losses and disgrace.

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