The echoes of the Russian shells that are now crushing Ukraine are echoing as far as the Austrian capital, despite the 1,300 kilometers separating Vienna and Kiev. The nuclear deal with Iran is the last thing that interests the West at the moment, or as a senior security official told me: It is empty as long as they remove this nuisance from the table. “
The dream deal is currently on the table for Iran: a weakened version of the previous nuclear deal from 2015. If the previous nuclear agreement was bad, then now it is already an agreement that is bad for glory. But like Putin, the Iranians also recognize that there is currently no functioning international system, that what we once called the “Western world” is now at the height of its weakness, and as usual, the Iranians are likely to continue negotiations in further attempts to concede further concessions.
Some have hoped that the weakness shown by the West vis-à-vis Putin will actually cause President Biden to show toughness towards the Iranians, but the dialogue with the Americans in recent days has made it clear that they have no leisure or energy to invest now in the Iranian issue. Washington understands that the fall of Ukraine may herald the beginning of a new world order, and that Russian appetite will not stop in Kiev. Once it has finished swallowing Ukraine, Putin may turn north, to the Baltic states that have joined NATO, and realize his vision of returning Russia to the borders of the Soviet Union. The Chinese are also following developments in Europe, which may affect their desire to take over Taiwan.
Even if the Iranians delay the signing of the new-old nuclear agreement, one can already see its outline, which is the same as those in the previous agreement but ignores the progress that Iran has made so far. The agreement will again place a limit on the quality of uranium enrichment and the amount of enriched uranium that Iran may hold. This limitation is almost insignificant given Iran’s ability, already today, to produce within a few weeks uranium enriched in quantity and quality that will suffice for a first bomb.
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The agreement also ignores the progress made by Iran in developing more efficient centrifuges, some of which are already installed and in operation. Under the emerging agreement, Iran will not be required to destroy the advanced centrifuges, only to store them, and by 2025 it will also be able to return them to use. Iran will be required to stop working at a uranium metal processing plant, a critical component in the production of a bomb, but this will happen after it has already acquired the knowledge to manufacture a nuclear weapon.
A new clause in the emerging agreement stipulates that Iran may itself declare a breach of the agreement by one of the signatory states. That is, if there is a US administration that decides to repay the sanctions, Iran will be released from all its obligations. And worst of all: the agreement leaves the “sunset clause” in place, which sets its expiration dates. In nine years, nuclear restrictions will be lifted over Iran, and it will be allowed to produce fissile material at will.
Israel has realized that there is no point in repeating past mistakes and embarking on a hopeless struggle in an agreement that the US administration longs for. From experience, Iran also announced that it would not sign an agreement that would be approved by the US House of Representatives, so the possibility of thwarting it in Congress also fell through. The Israeli understanding is that it will be inevitable to swallow this bitter pill and one should focus on how to sweeten it. On the side of dealing with a compensation package that Israel will request from the United States, which will include new technological capabilities, the main effort in the coming months will be to preserve Israeli freedom of action during the period of application of the agreement and towards the expiration date.
The nuclear agreement defines the control over the production of fissile material but does not address two other dimensions of the nuclear program, critical to the acquisition of a bomb: ballistic missiles and the development of a weapons facility. There, Israel will demand freedom of action to continue covert thwarting, both against elements related to Iran’s weapons development group and against the Iranian missile program. It is still unclear whether the Americans will grant us this freedom.
Unlike in 2013, when Israel complied with the American demand to stop preparing for the attack – this time there is an intention to continue building the military option for the day after the agreement. Defense Minister Bnei Gantz has made this clear, and this time, unlike a decade ago, Israel intends to insist on it. There are those in the IDF who also recognize the advantage in the nine years that this bad agreement buys us.
These nine years can be used to make a sharper and more effective military option than we had in the past, and when we talk about a military option, we are not just referring to the Air Force. Iran is a nuclear threshold even before the agreement is signed, and this is a fait accompli that Israel is unable to change. The Israeli challenge will be to take advantage of the time the agreement buys us to ensure that Iran will not be able to cross the threshold.