Israeli angst

I am leaving Israel more concerned than when I arrived. Based on two days of intense discussions with current and former Israeli officials, the level of Israeli distrust and anxiety over the Iran deal is worse than I expected. Part of the Israeli complaint is procedural. They resent being kept in the dark about the secret U.S.-Iranian meetings in Oman (even though Israeli intelligence learned about the meetings) and fear that the U.S. and Iran may have already reached secret agreements on the terms of a final deal. They are shocked at how quickly the interim deal came together and complain that a tougher U.S. posture that extended the negotiations for several more rounds could have produced a more favorable interim agreement. They don’t accept the argument that President Obama decided to seize the opportunity rather than run the risk that it would slip away because of opposition in Tehran and Washington.

Fundamentally, according to my Israeli contacts, Prime Minister Netanyahu suspects that President Obama has shifted from a policy of preventing Iran from getting a bomb to a de factopolicy of containment in order to avoid war and kick the Iranian issue into the next administration. Specifically, the Israelis complain that the interim agreement makes no mention of the requirement for Iran to suspend its enrichment program in accordance with UN Security Council resolutions, as – the Israelis claim – Washington repeatedly promised to include in any agreement. Instead, the agreement accepts that Iran will be allowed to have a “mutually defined” enrichment program “consistent with practical needs,” which the Israelis fear will be interpreted in the final deal to allow Iran to retain a substantial enrichment capacity.

Israeli fears were aggravated by a November 27 story by Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, citing US government sources, on US demands for a final deal. Among them, according to Ignatius, “the United States will press Iran to dismantle a substantial number of its roughly 19,000 centrifuges, perhaps more than half."  [emphasis mine] Sensitive to any hints of U.S. concessions, Israeli officials believe the U.S. may be prepared to accept as many as 9,000 centrifuges, which the Israelis say could give Iran the ability to produce a bomb’s worth of weapons-grade uranium within a few months, if Iran retained a sufficient stockpile of low enriched uranium.  As one of my Israeli contacts said, “We can’t live with that.”

Although Israeli officials are circumspect, Israelis outside government acknowledge that Prime Minister Netanyahu has decided to wage a campaign to obstruct and overturn American diplomacy toward Iran by mobilizing Congressional opposition. His preferred vehicle is legislation to impose a new raff of sanctions against Iran in six months if Iran has not agreed to acceptable terms for a final deal. Some Israeli officials argued that the U.S. should use such legislation as diplomatic leverage against Iran, but others worried that the White House has already begun to retaliate in other areas of the bilateral relationship in response to Israeli efforts to challenge President Obama politically. But, as one Israeli contact said, we are “justified” in working with Congress because Israel is facing an “existential” threat from Iran.

Most of my Israeli friends hope to avoid a political confrontation with Washington. Indeed, they are looking for ways to resume cooperation against the common threat of Iran’s nuclear weapons program. The upcoming meeting between the new Israeli National Security Adviser Yossi Cohen and U.S. National Security Adviser Susan Rice in Washington could be a positive turning point. First, Washington will explain its demands for the upcoming negotiations with Iran for a final deal. Most of these demands, as conveyed to Ignatius (such as closure of the Fordow facility and elimination of the Arak heavy water research reactor), would serve President Obama’s expressed intent that a final deal should make it “impossible” for Iran to develop nuclear weapons. The crucial issue will be the scope and scale of enrichment in Iran that the U.S. is prepared to accept in a final deal. The Israelis are unlikely to come off their demand for zero enrichment for fear that the U.S. will pocket any concessions, but the U.S. also has an interest in ensuring that "break out" time is extended beyond a few months. Second, both the U.S. and Israel have a common interest in developing a strategy to ensure that the remaining sanctions remain in force during the negotiations of a final agreement. Without this leverage, US hopes to negotiate a favorable end state will evaporate.

Whatever progress is made, however, the suspicion and mistrust will linger. And, as one Israeli said to me, “Bibi thinks he can play the Congressional card.” That’s a dangerous game to play.