The Iranian nuclear deal is being exploited for political gain ahead of the Nov. 1 elections. With Washington so eager to restore the pact, a matter so critical to Israeli security should stay a consensus.
Yoav Limor, ISRAEL HAYOM 4.9.22
The compromise proposal put forward by European officials mediating between the US and Iran in an effort to renew the 2015 nuclear deal perfectly summarizes the parties’ willingness to cut corners out of a desire to restore the pact.
According to the proposal, Washington and Tehran will postpone discussing the International Atomic Energy Agency investigation into uranium traces found at three undeclared Iranian nuclear sites until after the renewal.
As such, the only remaining point of dispute will be pushed out of the way, allowing the parties to reach an agreement. The US will gain peace of mind, and Iran will receive billions of dollars now that economic sanctions will be lifted.
But what about the IAEA probe? Unfortunately, it seems to be of no interest to anyone. This is alarming because it is a potential smoking gun, an investigation that might reveal whether or how much Iran has deceived the world. The documents were made available after a daring Mossad raid on Iranian archives in 2018.
They revealed that at three undeclared sites, Iran allegedly carried out nuclear activities in violation of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. This occurred even before the signing of the original agreement, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which shows that there is an alarming gap between what Iran says and what it does.
The information was then passed on to the nuclear agency, which launched an investigation. Iran refused to cooperate and tried to eliminate evidence from the sites in question. And now it demands that the probe be closed as part of restoring the nuclear agreement, and insists on a clean state.
The US (pressured by Israel) has so far denied the demand, but seems more willing now, and is reportedly ready to postpone the discussion altogether until after the pact is restored.
And what happens then? Not much. If the crippling sanctions did not prompt Iran to cooperate, there is little chance that the renewed deal will. The matter will be discussed at length, and Iran will laugh, and for more than one reason. Anyone who acts against the law will know from now on that if he acts diplomatically, he will avoid the consequences.
As an immediate repercussion, the IAEA will lose its influence, and in the long term, other countries will dare to act as they see fit.
Barnea is not wrong
Israel has invested great effort in recent weeks to try to prevent the agreement from being restored. Several high-ranking officials traveled to Washington, including National Security Adviser Eyal Hulata, Defense Minister Benny Gantz (who continued to Japan afterward ), and Mossad chief David Barnea.
Barnea has been called out for harshly criticizing the JCPOA, with some (including in the political-security echelon) claiming that he condoned his message unsuccessfully and should have been more sophisticated and less blatant, and certainly should have expressed himself in a way that would not create tension with the US administration.
It is a strange claim, because as head of Mossad, Barnea has been instructed by the government to act to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. To achieve this, he must do everything in his power, from operational and intelligence efforts, through diplomatic and political activity, to media campaigns, even if it does not sit well with various entities most of whom are unfamiliar with today’s realities.
After all, Barnea knows as well as they do that alienating the US administration is not an option. He has served enough in senior positions when former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did that to Barack Obama, and fully understands the consequences.
On the other hand, he also knows that Israel needs to keep its freedom of action, even if just for appearance. After all, if Jerusalem supported the agreement, it would be bound to it, and if it opposes it, then it can act as it sees fit is needed for security.
Israel does not oppose the nuclear deal, or to be more precise, it does not oppose every deal. Israel opposes the agreement in its current draft, because of its many issues, such as the IAEA investigation and the problematic expiration date. If improvements are introduced, Israel might withdraw its objections, because it understands that without any agreement at all, Iran might be tempted to speed toward a nuclear weapon.
But Washington is ready. The administration’s eagerness to restore the pact is so great that it is willing to turn a blind eye to Iranian attempts to assassinate former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former National Security Adviser John Bolton and Iranian dissidents, or attempts by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards to take control of US ships in the Persian Gulf.
All of these were supposed to have made Washington more stringent about its demands, but in practice, the administration is more interested in having the agreement restored, to end the Iranian headache and turn its attention elsewhere: China, Russia, and the upcoming mid-term elections.
Above politics
As the emerging nuclear deal is coinciding with the campaigns ahead of the Nov. 1st elections, the matter becoming political was unavoidable. The meeting between Prime Minister Yair Lapid and Opposition Leader Benjamin Netanyahu was used by a host of politicians and officials, who guise themselves as journalists, to declare a bunch of nonsense that achieved only one thing: turning the Iranian issue, which should be a consensus, into another political tool.
A senior security official wondered this week whether many of those who spoke for or against the agreement and expressed their opinions about it had actually read it. This is a rhetorical question of course; The prevailing majority probably didn’t, which turns it into a shallow discourse and inability to see matters are more than black and white.
The US withdrawal from the nuclear deal in 2018 is a good example of this. Netanyahu has previously been careful not to reveal that he encouraged Trump to leave the pact, fearing that Israel would be blamed for the chaos. But now that it serves him politically, he does speak about it.
He portrays it as a merit, of course, without referring to the fact that he failed to present an alternative plan at the time. Lapid, who supported the original deal in 2015, is now opposing the agreement in its current draft but has not explained the change in his position.
As prime minister, he can of course act this way, perhaps based on information unavailable to the public, but it would be preferable if he led a more transparent and clear policy.
Israel must do its best to improve the terms of the agreement before it is restored. And it must do so without burning bridges with Washington, both because we will need the US support on a variety of issues in the foreseeable future, and because in exchange for the agreement Israel might receive a generous “compensation package” from Uncle Sam.
At the same time, it needs to continue the shadow war against Iran, to ensure that the Islamist republic stays as far away from a nuclear weapon as possible and to limit Iranian terrorism and missile development projects.
All this must remain outside of politics. The last decade has proven that politicians in Israel know how to argue, but do not take responsibility for their actions (see, Meron disaster). If the Iranian nuclear threat is as critical as they claim, then they themselves should take it more seriously.
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