Did the Israelis strike Iran when it did because Michael Kurilla is still commander of U.S. Central Command and a “window” for a prospective joint operation with the U.S. might be closing?
Some are speculating that because Kurilla is expected to retire from the military this summer that the Israelis saw their chance. The Army general, 59, has been widely reported to be on one side of a split in the Pentagon over whether the U.S. should support and even be part of Israeli strikes against Iran’s nuclear program.
In April, Israel news outlet Ynet coined him as “The U.S. general Israel doesn’t want to strike Iran without.”
“Israeli defense analysts say the window for a successful attack on Iran’s nuclear program is rapidly closing,” wrote Alon Strimling on April 19. “That window could narrow dramatically once Kurilla steps down, as his successor’s stance remains unclear.”
Kurilla is retiring this summer after a nearly 40-year career that dates back to the first Persian Gulf War. Ynet noted that Kurilla “is seen as one of Israel’s staunchest allies in the American defense establishment,” and his relationship “runs deep” dating back to his time as a young officer in his 20s.
“He’s a hawk of hawks,” noted Curt Mills, executive director of the American Conservative. “(The Israelis) knew they were losing an ally soon. They knew the negotiations (with Iran) were ongoing. The Iranians had signaled that they were close to accepting a deal days before the strike. So all of these things were a factor.
"And then meanwhile, I think there's every piece of evidence that Kurilla would at least start the conflict and pop his cork on it before he leaves.”
Kurilla, according to the New York Times, had been open to Israeli strike plans earlier this spring, “that would have combined an Israeli commando raid on underground nuclear sites with a bombing campaign, an effort that the Israelis hoped would involve American aircraft.”
“Gen. Michael E. Kurilla, the head of U.S. Central Command, and Michael Waltz, the national security adviser, both discussed how the United States could potentially support an Israeli attack, if Mr. Trump backed the plan.”
Sources who spoke to RS since Friday’s attacks on Iran suggested that Kurilla wasn’t just “open” to such plans, he was actively promoting them inside the DoD. That’s not a surprise, said Justin Logan, director of Foreign Policy and Defense Studies at the Cato Institute.
“He has been pushing for war with Iran and away from diplomacy since before Trump took office in ways that run over civilian officials,” Logan told RS. The CENCTOM commander reports directly to the Secretary of Defense.
Dan Caldwell, former adviser to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, told the Breaking Points podcast Monday that he didn’t think the timing of the strikes were a “coincidence.”
“I think it's been reported, and you know, based on my experience with him, that he takes a fundamentally different view of the importance of the Middle East than a lot of other people in the administration. And he also, I think, believes that a military campaign against Iran will not be as costly as others,” Caldwell said.
“So I think there are a lot of folks that want to see some type of military action occur before he retires as a result of that,” he added. "So he retires in the middle of July. And I don't think it's a coincidence you see a lot of pressure ramping up to do something prior to his retirement time.”
To understand the authority the CENTCOM commander wields is to understand that the combatant command oversees an AOR (Area of Responsibility) that spans 21 countries — including Israel now — across the Middle East, Central Asia, and parts of South Asia. It directs five "service component commands" of Army, Navy (including the Fifth Fleet), Air Force, Marines, Space Command, as well as a joint special operations command (SOCCENT).
Kurilla has pursued a highly elaborate system of military integration with Israel and partners in the region in what he has called a “strategy to deter Iranian aggression.” It has been referred to as a “security umbrella” or “Kurilla’s umbrella.”
Even as Iranian proxies in the Palestinian territories, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran itself were taking blows and losing influence after Oct. 7, 2023, Kurilla was telling Congress that it was important to that U.S. not be the “security guarantor” but the “security integrator” in the region because essentially Iran is still an existential threat to everyone.
“Iran and its expansive network of proxies and partners saw a once-in-a generation opportunity to reshape the region to its advantage. They have accelerated their efforts to expel Western presence and neutralize our influence in the region, enabling a long-term strategic goal to further their revolution and establish regional hegemony,” he told the House Armed Services Committee in March 2024. “Iran knows that its decades-long vision of dominating the region cannot be realized if the region’s states continue to expand integration with each other and deepen partnership with the United States.”
He spoke of the importance of the GCC (Gulf Cooperation states), the contributions and joint training with Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Qatar. The U.S. boasted that Arab states played a role in a “coalition” to help thwart Iran’s retaliatory attacks against Israel in April 2024.
“Israeli military officials dubbed this system ‘Kurilla’s umbrella,’ noting that U.S. radar systems in the UAE and Qatar can now aid Israeli defense,” Ynet’s Strimling reported. “According to foreign reports, that umbrella also included quiet cooperation from Saudi Arabia and Jordan during Iran’s failed missile and drone barrage in April 202(4).”
That coordination also kicked in during Iranian retaliatory strikes against Israel in Oct. 2024, where experts say without the U.S. and its partners, more missiles would have hit inside Israel’s territory.
According to reports, Kurilla had wanted a more aggressive approach to the Iran-backed Houthis in the last year of the Biden administration but didn’t get his chance until Trump took over in January.
He pushed for sustained attacks in March. He got his wish, according to the Times, but then Trump imposed a 30-day test. When the 30 days were up, Kurilla and team had little to show for the millions in munitions dropped on the Yemeni militant group and Yemen civilian infrastructure, and Trump proceeded with making a deal to end the direct fighting.
In that time the Houthis had shot down seven MQ-9 Reaper drones and two F/A-18s went tumbling off the flight deck of the USS Truman aircraft carrier. The operation cost the U.S. over a billion dollars, adding to the billion already spent fighting the Houthis during the Biden administration.
Nevertheless, Kurilla was successful in getting more military equipment moved into the Middle East during that period, including a second aircraft carrier, the USS Carl Vinson, to join the carrier USS Harry S. Truman, two Patriot missile batteries and a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system (THAAD), plus B-2 bombers capable of carrying 30,000-pound bombs were sent to Diego Garcia, a U.S. base in the Indian Ocean.
Meanwhile according to reports, he’s been engaging in a full court press behind the scenes for a joint operation with the Israelis in Iran. That pressure campaign may have gotten Waltz fired from his top job at the National Security Council back in May. He apparently had private “intense discussions” about it with Benjamin Netanyahu before the prime minister’s meeting with Trump in the Oval Office.
In a trip to Israel in April, Kurilla discussed "continued efforts to deepen the military partnership between the United States and Israel and increase interoperability between our forces," according to a CENTCOM statement, adding, "Gen. Kurilla reiterated the ironclad military-to-military relationship between the U.S. and Israel."
On the other side of the ledger are other voices, including Undersecretary for Policy Elbridge Colby, Vice President J.D. Vance, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who have counseled the president to focus on the diplomatic pathway instead of indulging plans for aggressive military action.
Semafor reported the split this week, citing tensions between Kurilla and Colby.
“US military leaders, including the chief of US Central Command, Gen. Michael Kurilla, have requested more resources to support and defend Israel,” wrote Semafor's Ben Smith. “But their requests have drawn resistance from undersecretary of defense for policy Elbridge Colby, who has long opposed moving US military assets from Asia to the Middle East, people sympathetic to each side of the argument told Semafor.”
This is true said Caldwell, who was let go from Hegseth's office in a very public imbroglio in April. “We're in an environment where the United States military resources are constrained. We've had 20 years-plus of wars in the Middle East. We have emptied many of our magazines of ammunition and our arsenals to support Ukraine as we have an environment where our resources are not limitless, so trade offs are real,” Caldwell told Breaking Points.
“So every asset we move into CENTCOM comes at the expense of another Combatant Command like the Indo-Pacific, where we have a real threat, a real challenge, in China; we trade off against things we're trying to do in the Western Hemisphere.” Caldwell said. He added that Colby and others were trying to stress this, seeing diplomacy with Iran as the priority, which Trump was committed to, too, and still may be today.
No doubt there are voices on the inside and out that want Trump to greenlight full U.S. intervention, the joint operation that Kurilla and others had envisioned. Caldwell said many of the political appointees and also members of the uniformed military know the risks such an intervention would bring. “But there are a lot of people …(who) are still bought in on this idea that this is largely a risk-free proposition, but let me tell you if the U.S. gets involved there is a risk that it could be one of the biggest national security catastrophes we have seen in the last 20 to 30 years.”
