First came the rude awakening. After years of buying into and perpetuating a Netanyahu developed-articulated-preached-marketed false narrative about the intolerable deficiencies and abject flaws of the Iran nuclear deal (the JCPOA), some medical miracles are taking place: people are simultaneously developing eye-sight and spinal-cord capabilities.
After years of pontificating about how a better deal was absolutely achievable, and why a U.S. withdrawal from this atrocious agreement was imperative and would coerce Iran into a real, serious deal, came the humbling admission: Israelis in key positions of policymaking during the 2015 agreement and its aftermath are now conceding that the U.S. withdrawal was a “net negative” for Israel.
The agreement wasn’t perfect but perhaps it wasn’t so bad, and it was overwhelmingly better than the alternative Israel has to cope with now.
The JCPOA deconstructed most of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and subjected the remaining installations to stringent monitoring. Since the U.S. withdrawal, Iran – which complied with the agreement almost fully – has made significant advances in its nuclear program: more advanced centrifuges are used in more efficient cascades; there are more enriched uranium stockpiles (estimated at around 300 kilograms, or 660 pounds) at higher enrichment levels (60 percent); and there is a more decentralized and clandestine spread.
But after the admission comes the Vienna lollapalooza: a seventh round of negotiations between the U.S. and Iran about a possible new deal. Israel immediately reverted to rehashed and righteously indignant statements: the agreement – which Israel nor anyone else has seen, simply because it does not yet exist – is bad. The U.S. should stop the charade that is tarnishing its image and corroding its power.
Israel then declared that it will not be a party to, nor abide by, any agreement.
Israel began relitigating the myth of the “bad deal” and selling it as a refurbished policy: any deal with Iran is by definition and by default a bad deal. It would eminently fail to curb Iranian nuclear plans; Iran will cheat, lie and deceive, and a complacent, appeasing world will tolerate it.
But the fact is that however imperfect the 2015 JCPOA was, it curtailed Iran’s nuclear program as it existed at that point: the Arak “heavy water” reactor was dismantled; the plutonium path was blocked; fissile materials were shipped out of Iran; centrifuges were disassembled; and Iran was under the strict, albeit not airtight, supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The debate on exerting more pressure on Iran has merits, but also several significant shortcomings and major flaws.
The idea that Iran can only be effectively dealt with and deterred by the application of further pressure through heavier sanctions and by introducing a credible military threat seems and sounds like a sensible policy. After all, according to this logic, Iran is empowered and emboldened by a favorable cost-effective matrix. It simply was never made to pay for its actions and policies with regard to its nuclear program and regional ambitions.
From an Iranian perspective, the U.S. and the world displayed a lack of resolve as Israel was constantly threatening but never going to attack, and then it encouraged the U.S. to unilaterally withdraw from an agreement Iran was mostly adhering to, vindicating Tehran’s policies. Once Iran was faced with genuinely “crippling sanctions” that would exact a hefty economic price and once it realized the ominous specter of a military strike against it, it would become amenable to a new, improved JCPOA deal and its military nuclear program would be severely debilitated.
Furthermore, according to this approach, such pressure would likely set in motion a regime-changing dynamic.
This is the comfort food of foreign policy. Where and when did this happen last? Right. It didn’t. Wishful thinking is a very natural and human concept. However, it is neither a strategy nor a coherent policy.
Like many policy ideas developed with rigid conviction and righteous determination, what makes sense theoretically or on paper is rarely feasible or attainable practically.
First, Iran has not caved to sanctions. Nor has it modified its policies or behavior. Sanctions imposed until 2015 before the original JCPOA, and those reinstalled and augmented in 2018 after the U.S. withdrew from the agreement, greatly damaged and impaired the Iranian economy. They did not, however, facilitate any changes. Quite the contrary. Once Iran began violating the agreement and started enriching more uranium at higher enrichment levels in June 2019 – a full year after the U.S. reneged on the deal – it became increasingly clear and evident that being a “nuclear threshold state” was a far better position to be in than within the confines of the agreement.
Second, the main challenge and constant threat Iran is posing is not in the nuclear realm but in its regional behavior, particularly the proxy terrorist organizations Iran supports and uses to destabilize the region. Neither the original JCPOA nor any new agreement will address that. More sanctions will not facilitate behavioral change. This hasn’t happened in the case of Russia, North Korea or any other country with the exception of apartheid South Africa, but those were unique political circumstances.
Third, Iran is already effectively a “nuclear threshold state.” It has the knowledge, technology, components and ability, but until now refrained from making the political decision to cross the Rubicon and produce a nuclear weapon. Sanctions imposed by the U.S., even with its European allies, will not change that dramatically.
Fourth, Israel has been slow in recognizing and coming to terms with an uncomfortable reality: there is a substantial gap between the U.S. and Israel on Iran. In the absence of an agreement, the U.S. can and will tolerate Iran as a “threshold state.” Israel ostensibly says it cannot and will not.
Israel’s skepticism is warranted, but not without a diplomatic downside. Any American “confidence-building measures” i.e., lifting some sanctions as a goodwill gesture, may lead to an interim deal – a “less for less” mini-deal. Israel will then be forced to confront the U.S. on the contours of the deal. That is not a position you want to be in.
Furthermore, vocally opposing any agreement and automatically depicting it as “bad” risks isolating Israel as the only country that opposed it and essentially presented the world with the binary choice of a war with Iran. The appetite and inclination for such an adventure in the U.S. and Europe is zero.
Which brings us to Israel’s most vexing dilemma, and arguably the worst scenario: the U.S. suspends talks on the grounds of Iranian intransigence and the futility of the process. The U.S. warns Iran not to proceed provocatively with its nuclear program. Israel supposedly should be content, right? Wrong. Israel will be left to deal with Iran on its own, which is the last thing it wants.
Raising concerns and expressing deep reservations about a possible deal is the right and responsible thing to do. This needs to be done with the U.S. quietly and discreetly, whether there is or is not an agreement.
Israel’s anxieties are understandable, too. Iran is a formidable foe, and the combination of an extreme Islamic regime, defining itself as an ongoing revolution, and nuclear weapons poses a potential existential threat. There is no way to mitigate this anxiety by leniently dissecting Iranian statements and Shi’ite theology and concluding that they “don’t really mean that.” They do.
But the level of public hysteria emanating from Jerusalem is truly inexplicable and unjustifiable. Replicating Netanyahu’s populist alarmism about “This is 1938 and Iran is Nazi Germany” is not a policy. It is hollow rhetoric for domestic consumption and political expediency.
Israel is strong and capable of projecting its power in a multitude of ways, means and technologies. Iran knows that and the U.S. knows that. Israel can and should be patient before making grandstanding statements. With or without an agreement, there will be time for such statements.