Israeli officials recently received an urgent warning:
It’s signed by three worried citizens: Maj. Gen. (res.) Aharon Ze’evi-Farkash, a former director of Military Intelligence; Gideon Frank, a former head of the Atomic Energy Commission; and Ariel Levite, one of Israel’s leading nuclear experts. The document’s authors were invited to present it at several meetings with the heads of the relevant organizations. …
According to Ze’evi-Farkash, Frank and Levite, the emerging agreement is worse than its predecessor, which was signed in 2015. It reflects the collapse of the Netanyahu policy that encouraged Trump to withdraw from the original deal.
The pressure of the economic sanctions imposed by the Trump administration didn’t break the Iranians, and in the past two years they started to violate the agreement (without withdrawing from it) and progress toward a nuclear bomb.
The three experts write: “Reliable, extremely worrisome information has reached us about the status of the negotiations between the powers and Iran. The negotiations stand at a very advanced stage. It emerges that in their eagerness to remove the issue from the agenda, the Americans are now willing to suffice with a ‘reduced’ arrangement in which most of the sanctions that the Trump administration has imposed on Iran since 2018 will be lifted. In exchange, Iran will retreat from only some of the steps it has taken since 2019 to advance its nuclear project.”
The three warn that the United States is now willing to make do with only partial restrictions on the advanced enrichment capability (five times as fast as its predecessor) that Iran has been exercising in recent years, and to forgo some of the supervision clauses over the Iranians’ research and development efforts. They say Washington is also willing to show flexibility on the study of the history of the nuclear program by the International Atomic Energy Agency, which requires access to facilities and full explanations to the agency’s inspectors.
According to the three experts, “The United States intends to rebuff criticism of the reduced agreement with the promise that all these additional issues and others will be dealt with in a future improved, long-term agreement. However, Iran is steadfast in its opposition to negotiate such an accord, and in any event the prospect that it will be achieved in the foreseeable future appears very poor.”
I doubt that Israel’s input will have any effect on the American negotiation team, which is led by the longtime opponent of the Jewish state, Robert Malley.
The article continues:
Ze’evi-Farkash, Frank and Levite warn that a diminished agreement will have serious implications for Israel. “Iran will step forward legitimately as a nuclear-threshold state possessing know-how, experience, advanced centrifuges and a production infrastructure of enriched uranium that will enable it to achieve confidently, within just months of deciding, fissionable material for a first weapon and for a number of weapons shortly thereafter.”
They maintain that the 2015 agreement saw to “a warning time of about a year for Iran to arrive at sufficient fissionable material to manufacture one nuclear bomb. According to the emerging agreement, and in the absence of supervisory and enforcement arrangements on the activity of the weapons group, Iran will be able to advance secretly and shorten significantly the time required to obtain a nuclear arsenal.”
“The warning time for a renewal of an Iranian effort to achieve the weapon will be abbreviated and will, accordingly, limit the available options for thwarting it. Iran will retain an extensive underground enrichment infrastructure, which it has actually extended recently, that will hamper activity to thwart it.”
“A return to the contours of the previous agreement will also obligate the United States to go back to refraining from intervening against the Iranian nuclear program, and this could have implications for Israel’s freedom of action. A reduced arrangement, in which most of the sanctions on Iran will be lifted, will expand the resources available to that country for taking action in spheres disturbing to us and also create a feeling of immunity.”
In other words, Iran will be able to get the bomb with very little lead time for Israel to act, and the US will be obligated to prevent Israel from acting against Iran. In addition, the agreement will make funds available for Iran’s regional terrorist proxies that threaten Israel and the Sunni Arab states.
I cannot bend my mind enough to see how this is in America’s interest. It certainly amplifies an existential threat against Israel, and will leave her no options other than military ones.
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