Iran has dismissed IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi's warning against a return to the 2015 nuclear deal and his declaration he had ordered the Israel Defense Forces to come up with plans for possible offensive action against the country should Israel have to prevent the Iranians from acquiring a nuclear weapon on their own as psychological warfare
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According to Mahmoud Vaezi, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's chief of staff, Israel is concerned by US President Joe Biden's administration's independent approach and is trying through such statements to prevent Washington from returning to the Iran nuclear deal. An Iranian army spokesman emphasized Iran would defend itself from any aggression.
Things, however, are a bit more complicated than the Iranians would like us to believe.
Even if Kochavi's statements were aimed at making Israel's fervent opposition to a return to the nuclear deal perfectly clear to the White House, the ones engaging in far more significant psychological warfare to convince the US to return to the accord are the Iranians themselves.
Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Zarif published an article in Foreign Affairs, the prestigious international relations and US foreign policy magazine with ties to the new administration. In his piece, Zarif laid out Iran's demands for the US return to the spokespeople for Tehran in recent days.
Moreover, the Iranians have not sufficed with words. They are backing up their psychological warfare with steps that shorten the breakout time for them to produce a nuclear weapon by announcing plans to enrich uranium to 20%, installing advanced centrifuges at the Natanz nuclear facility, and accumulating a large amount of uranium that has been enriched 4.5% to acquire uranium metal usable in nuclear warheads.
Yet these steps are not just aimed at acquiring a weapon; they are aimed at pressuring the US to return to the nuclear deal by providing justification for such a move and presenting the maximalist policies of former US President Donald Trump's administration as a failure. Iran's clear preference to return to the deal and its energetic efforts to this end are themselves proof that Kochavi was correct in his analysis that a return to the deal is good for Tehran and threatens regional and global peace as well as Israel's security.
The attempt by Tehran to present a willingness to defend the infrastructure that allows it to legitimately obtain an arsenal of 10 nuclear weapons reflects not only an ongoing effort to improve its relevant military capabilities but also the deterrent effect of the IDF chief of staff's remarks. Iran has not suddenly grown overly confident. It has been deterred from challenging the Americans following the assassination of Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani. In the past, Iran refrained from challenging either the US or Israel, out of recognition of their capabilities.
In other words, despite their claims otherwise, the Iranians are likely taking Kochavi's remarks very seriously, very seriously indeed.
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