Blinken asks Bennett for his Iran deal alternative

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Blinken asked Bennett and other Israeli officials for their alternative to a nuclear deal with Iran that will limit Tehran’s uranium enrichment, a senior State Department official and an Israeli official told me.

Why it matters: After months of indirect negotiations between Iran and the Biden administration, a draft agreement for returning to the 2015 nuclear deal is almost done.

• The last remaining stumbling block is Iran’s demand that the Biden administration remove the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) from the Foreign Terrorist Organizations blacklist.
• Israel, together with its Arab allies in the region, is against a U.S. return to the nuclear deal.

Behind the scenes: The Israeli and U.S. officials said the Iran issue was at the center of the meeting between Blinken and Bennett on Sunday, but regardless of the disagreement, the discussion wasn’t tense.

• Blinken asked Bennett for his alternative to the nuclear deal and how he would stop Iran from reaching nuclear weapon capability when its current enrichment pace would allow it to do so within weeks.
• Israeli officials said Bennett told Blinken that Iran can be deterred from moving toward enriching uranium to the military level of 90% if it knows that the U.S. and European countries would ramp up sanctions to the level they’ve placed on Russia.
• Bennett also told Blinken that the nuclear deal will only be “a Band-Aid” solution for just a few years, and at the same time, it will give Iran billions of dollars it would be able to use for its regional malign activities and to arm its proxies, Israeli officials said.
• “It is us here in the region that will have to deal with that afterward,” Bennett told Blinken, according to a senior Israeli official.

The Iran deal also came up during the Negev summit a day later.

• Lapid’s Egyptian, Moroccan, Emirati and Bahraini counterparts raised concerns about the nuclear deal and its regional consequences, stressing they are against the Biden administration removing the IRGC from the FTO blacklist, two senior Israeli officials told me.

State of play: EU political director Enrique Mora was in Tehran on Sunday and met Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator to try to find a compromise regarding the IRGC demand.

• Mora then traveled to Washington for talks with U.S. Iran envoy Rob Malley.
• During a conference in Doha, Qatar, on Sunday, Malley said he doesn’t think a nuclear deal with Iran is around the corner.

5. Scoop: Blinken-MBZ meeting eases tensions

Tuesday’s meeting between Blinken and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed helped bring down tensions and “move the relationship between the UAE and the U.S. back on the right track,” UAE ambassador to Washington Yousef Al Otaiba told me.

Why it matters: Relations have been strained since a Houthi missile attack on Abu Dhabi in January.

• The Emiratis were disappointed with a U.S. response that they saw as too weak and slow, while the Biden administration was subsequently disappointed by the Emirati response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Driving the news: The meeting between Blinken and MBZ, which lasted two hours, started with a discussion of the tensions in the relationship but quickly moved on to issues like the Houthi attacks on the UAE, Iran, Syria, the Abraham Accords and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a source briefed on the meeting said.

• Blinken told MBZ the U.S. remains committed to helping the UAE defend itself against threats from Yemen and elsewhere in the region, according to State Department spokesperson Ned Price.
• “It was a positive meeting that helps move the relationship between the UAE and the U.S. back on the right track, where it belongs,” Al Otaiba told me
• Blinken said before the meeting that many U.S. initiatives around the world will be more effective if done in partnership with the UAE.

A day after the meeting, the U.S. Treasury announced new sanctions on key actors in Iran’s ballistic missile program.

• The Treasury Department specifically cited recent Houthi attacks and strikes by “Iranian proxies against Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.”
• The U.S. will work with its “partners in the region to hold Iran accountable for its actions, including gross violations of the sovereignty of its neighbors,” the Treasury’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence Brian Nelson said in the statement.

Behind the scenes: Emirati officials said Blinken intended to visit MBZ in Abu Dhabi but his schedule changed, by which time MBZ had already left the country for a private vacation in Morocco.

• Emirati officials saw the fact that Blinken decided to meet him in Rabat as a sign of U.S. commitment to the relationship.
• Israeli officials say they had also been trying to help mend the relationship, and that the Negev summit — which brought Blinken together with Emirati Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed — helped lay the ground for the meeting with MBZ in Morocco.