While public attention in Israel is firmly focused on the various deeds of MK Tali Gottlieb (Likud), a historic development is occurring in the Middle East, representing a new watershed. According to increasingly insistent reports, Washington and Tehran have reached, or at least are about to reach, "agreements" regarding Iran's nuclear program. They include US consent to Iranian uranium enrichment to a level of 60% along with the injection of billions of dollars into the Islamic Republic. The ayatollahs, in return, will not cross this threshold, will enable greater international supervision, release US prisoners and refrain from attacking US forces in the Middle East (which raises the question of just whom precisely the Iranians will attack?).
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The US administration is currently denying that any agreements have been reached, but the facts are that the Iranians themselves are talking about a potential agreement, that the IAEA has shut down investigations against the Iranians, and that billions of dollars have already been flowing into Tehran in recent weeks. When it comes to these matters, there is no such thing as coincidence.
It is quite possible that in the future too there will be no official announcement of "agreements" or "an agreement", but the reality will simply be determined under these terms. It is much more politically opportune for both sides not to admit to its existence. As far as the Iranians are concerned, an agreement with the West is a "poisoned chalice".
In American public opinion, Iran is President Putin's ally, the one that is constantly endeavoring to replenish Russia's arsenal in the war against Ukraine. Publicity over an agreement with Tehran would see US President Joe Biden incurring the wrath not only of his Republican adversaries but also of his Democratic Party colleagues. It is thus patently clear that denial is the best possible option for all.
Terrible agreements
It is important to focus on the tremendous achievements that this agreement would grant the Iranians. Not only legitimacy for the nuclear program itself but consent for an inconceivable enrichment threshold of 60% – the majority of the road towards obtaining a bomb, a vital kiss of life to resurrect Iran's collapsing economy and turning a blind eye to the Islamic regime's efforts to generate terrorism, its ballistic missile program, not to mention its murderous oppression of any attempts at anti-regime protest in Iran. There is a simple, almost scientific, method of illustrating just how terrible these "agreements" are, and that is to compare them with the original 2015 nuclear agreement. In simple terms, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), the nuclear agreement signed with Iran in July 2015, limited the level of enrichment to 3.67%, required Iran to remove the HEU (highly enriched uranium) from its territory, prohibited Tehran from introducing new centrifuges into the program and essentially placed a form of "electronic bracelet" on the program by ensuring close international monitoring of its remaining nuclear infrastructure.
Everybody remembers how Israel, under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's leadership, embarked on a world war against the 2015 agreement, which culminated in Netanyahu's controversial, contrarian address to the US Congress. Following this, Israel's then Ambassador to the US, Ron Dermer, and others succeeded in posing obstacles to the ratification of the agreement in the US Senate. The diplomatic and security establishment, for the most part, was strongly opposed to that agreement at the time, as indeed it was, as Netanyahu called it in Congress, "a very bad deal".And now, eight years later on, with a framework agreement that is ten times worse – specifically at a time when Iran is firmly regarded as a pariah state in the US, especially because of its staunch support for Russia, same Israel, and the same Netanyahu remain silent. "A difference in outlook that we do not conceal with regard to small agreements", was the term used by Netanyahu in a session of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee discussing Israel's current policy pertaining to the "agreements".
So what now?
If there is any Israeli objection to these apparent agreements nobody is aware of it. But, unlike in 2015, Netanyahu is not challenging the US on arriving at "agreements", he has not defined them as "capitulation" and a "mistake of historic proportions", and he is not embarking on a TV campaign of public diplomacy as he did back then – and of course he is not going to address Congress as he did then. The same Netanyahu is not even warning the citizens of Israel as to the dangers of the new agreement. In his recent autobiography, "Bibi – The Story of My Life", he writes about the 2015 agreement: "If I don't adopt a position on this, then what in Hell I am doing here at all?"
Only one year ago, Netanyahu lambasted former prime ministers Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid for "knuckling under" to the Americans, and explained that the "Government has become resigned to the fact of a nuclear Iran and as such is endangering Israel's future." And so now what?
In the Prime Minister's Office, you can hear a variety of excuses underlining the differences between then and today. Thus, for example, the head of the National Security Council, Tzachi Hanegbi, claimed in a recent interview with Israel Hayom, that "These agreements, unlike the original agreement, don't appear to pose a critical threat to us." These excuses are far from convincing. Inexplicably, even in what has been his trademark "pet project" – Iran – it is difficult to ignore the impression that this really is not the same, familiar Bibi.
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