Yair Lapid, who will be named Interim Prime Minister in the coming days, will be asked to quickly formulate his policy regarding a possible nuclear deal between Iran and the West that is now back on the table. The Bennett government openly opposed any such agreement, but Lapid will come under pressure, including from defense officials, to change this policy.
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The renewal of nuclear talks should come as no surprise: Iran and the US share a strategic interest to finalize a new deal as soon as possible, each for their own reason. The Americans want to remove the headache of the nuclear deal from their national agenda and indirectly use Iran to reduce global oil prices.
The Biden administration is extremely troubled by gas prices in the US. They are a reflection of soaring living costs that are expected to impact the mid-term elections in November and likely result in a trouncing for the Democrats.
Regardless, Biden supported returning to the nuclear deal from his first day in office and saw it as the best way to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power. The Americans believe that taking the uranium the Iranians have enriched out of their country will significantly lengthen their path to a nuclear bomb, or at the very least "buy time" that can be used to improve the deal in the future or prepare other options to prevent Iran from building a bomb.
The Iranians need a nuclear deal to free themselves of economic sanctions and gain access to the billions of frozen dollars in various bank accounts across the globe. A return to the nuclear deal would allow it to produce five to six times more oil, which would also result in a massive influx of cash annually. This money will help Iran rehabilitate its battered economy to an extent, and curb the wave of protests in the country.
It's reasonable to assume that upon the renewal of nuclear talks the Iranians will want the US to remove the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps from its list of terrorist organizations, but it's possible they will retract this demand. They will also ask for guarantees that the US won't withdraw from the deal in the future, although it's doubtful they will get any. These are tactical matters anyway that shouldn't trump the strategic aim of both sides, which is to return to a deal.
Israel, thus far, has adamantly opposed a deal. Although Naftali Bennett, contrary to Benjamin Netanyahu, chose not to openly confront the Biden administration on the issue, their attitudes toward the deal itself are identical: Both believe it is a bad deal that fails to address the bevy of problems found in the original deal, and which have only become more acute amid the backdrop of Iran's considerable progress in the development and installment of advanced centrifuges, which allows it to enrich uranium at a far faster pace than before.
Lapid as prime minister of the transition government will have to formulate his policy urgently, even before Biden's visit to the region next month. He will hear from IDF generals – namely Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi and senior officers from the Military Intelligence Directorate and Iran desk – that they support a return to the nuclear deal, which in their view moves Iran away from a bomb and gives Israel time to prepare a significant military option.
On the other hand, other diplomatic and defense officials, spearheaded by the Mossad, believe that from a professional and moral perspective, the current policy should not be changed. In their view, Israel cannot be a partner to a bad deal with a short expiration date and no answers for the holes in the original deal.
This is the view shared by Bennett, who will serve in Lapid's government as the minister in charge of the Iranian issue. Perhaps Bennett asked to retain this job because he feared that pressure from the IDF, which at the very least requires a public explanation due to its controversial nature – will eventually influence Lapid's policies which, as stated, haven't been determined yet.
Political consequences
The decision will have strategic but also political consequences. The public, which isn't familiar with all the details, still by and large instinctually opposes a return to the nuclear deal. If Lapid changes course now, on the eve of another extremely contentious election campaign, he could be perceived as falling in line with American policy on an existential matter for Israel.
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