The world is now at a crossroads that will determine whether Iran becomes a nuclear state.
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Just last week I wrote that the 2015 nuclear deal is all but dead. It is still in purgatory because as far as Europe is concerned, it is still in force despite the US pulling out in 2018 under then-President Donald Trump, and despite Iran subsequently breaching its clauses.
The 2023 intelligence estimate recently produced by IDF Intelligence Directorate, which was revealed in Israel Hayom last week, shows that there is great concern over Iran's progress toward a bomb – and rightly so.
Iran is a nuclear-threshold state for all intents and purposes and currently, there is no enforcement mechanism that would be able to stop it from reaching the status of a nuclear state. Thus, inaction is the worst course of action
But what are the options at hand? There are three possible paths one could pursue to stop Iran's nuclear program. The first – forcing Iran to halt its progress by having it face massive economic pressure and the threat of a military strike. Such a scenario is unlikely because Iran has long realized that giving up capabilities comes with a risky price, as Ukraine and Libya realized after they forfeited their nuclear know-how or arsenal. For Iran, this steep price is something it wants to avoid.
The second option is launching an attack on Iran. While such a move is feasible and would likely be successful, it could also ignite a regional war and could result in Iran shifting its strategy from that of a threshold state to a country with nuclear deterrence. In other words, this option would only make Iran's nuclear program pick up pace.
Finally, the third option is to try to reach a new nuclear deal after the current one is declared officially dead. Such a deal would have to impose verifiable restrictions on Iran in a way that would deny it a military nuclear program in exchange for sanction relief.
The question we have to ask is whether such a deal is viable and whether would it serve Israel's security interests. This, of course, rests on the condition that the current one would be officially discarded and Iran would be willing to sign off on the harsher terms under the new arrangement.
The biggest downside of a new deal is that it would give legitimacy to the ayatollah regime and bolster its economic standing, thus indirectly helping it fend off domestic challenges. This stamp of approval, especially against the backdrop of Iran's military assistance to Russia in the Ukraine war, would make the West look weak. As such, it is likely that this would run against the US interests.
The current limbo helps Iran
The biggest upside of a new pact with Iran would be its lack of sunset clauses, i.e. ensuring that the restrictions on Iran's enrichment and other nuclear-related capabilities (such as developing fusing and arming mechanisms) would never expire and that it would not be able to become a nuclear state, averting a Middle East nuclear arms race. On top of that, this advantage would mean that Israel would not have to contend with an existential threat. In the grand scheme of things, despite facing only bad options, denying Iran nuclear weapons outweighs the concern over granting legitimacy to its regime.
That said, Israel's main problem is not in choosing among those options, because the likelihood that Iran would enter into such a long-term and more restrictive deal is slim. The most concerning issue is that Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei might not want any deal.
Perhaps he prefers the current limbo where Iran is close to projecting ambiguous nuclear capabilities without being at the mercy of the West to prop up its economy. It has also enjoyed the backing of a superpower, Russia. This support, which extends to diplomatic forums, will eventually translate into great shifts in Iran's military prowess, as well.
If this is the current state of affairs, perhaps we have to ask ourselves the following: How can we change the current Iran-West dynamics and ratchet up the pressure on Tehran?
Any alternative is better than what is currently unfolding because of inaction. We are duty-bound to look with scrutiny at the strategy that brought us to where we are right now.
Maj. Gen. (res.) Tamir Hayman is the Managing Director of the Institute for National Security Studies.
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