With the U.S. leaning toward Iran nuke talks, Israel needs a contingency plan

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Iran is soon expected to announce its return to talks with the world powers on resuming the nuclear agreement, which was frozen following the election of President Ebrahim Raisi in June. Iranian state television reported Tuesday that the talks would resume in the coming weeks. Unofficial talks are expected to take place even before that during the UN General Assembly, which opened Tuesday in New York.

The decision to renew the talks is almost entirely up to Iran. It was in question after the hawkish, conservative Raisi’s victory, but the Biden administration already signaled its support for renewed talks the moment Iran was willing to engage.

President Ebrahim Raisi remotely addressing the UN General Assembly on Tuesday.Eduardo Munoz / AFP

President Joe Biden reiterated this in his speech to the General Assembly Tuesday, and pledged once again to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. Israel is frustrated with American policy but is slowly coming to terms with it. Israeli objections were raised during Biden’s meeting with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett last month in Washington and in a series of meetings between other senior officials.

In some of the talks, the Israelis recommended that the Americans toughen their tone and even threaten Iran militarily if it continues to advance its nuclear project. But the American administration, despite the warm friendship with Israel and close ties with officials on a professional level, was not convinced.

Some of Biden’s people, who were also involved in the formulation of the nuclear agreement under President Barack Obama in 2015, are still explaining to the Israelis why President Trump’s decision to assassinate Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in early 2020 was a regrettable mistake.

These circumstances, from the Israeli point of view, are far from encouraging. Recent months have seen a debate in senior political and security circles in Israel over whether Iran should now be defined as a nuclear threshold state. In an extensive article published on Monday in Yedioth Ahronoth, former Prime Minister Ehud Barak argued that this question has already been answered. According to Barak, “It is very likely that the horses have already bolted from the barn. Iran has apparently crossed the point of no return toward being a nuclear threshold state.”

Barak added: “In terms of access to nuclear weaponry, there is no difference between a threshold state and a nuclear state. A threshold state can be a country that has nuclear weapons but does not hold them ‘united’ and ready for immediate operation, but rather separately, so that transforming them into a weapon takes time – a few hours or a few months, whatever the government wants. … A threshold state is merely a diplomatic tool in the hands of the political leadership to make its declared situation ambiguous and increase flexibility and freedom of political action. This is no comfort with regard to Iran’s progress toward a nuclear weapon.”

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This was in reference to advancements Iran has made in enriching uranium. Trump’s withdrawal from the agreement in May 2018 led to renewed Iranian infractions a year later. Last week the New York Times reported, based on experts from an American research institute, that Iran was a month or two away from obtaining the quantity (if not the quality) of enriched uranium that would be sufficient for one nuclear bomb. After this threshold is met, a nuclear warhead still has to be manufactured (that is, weaponizing this quantity of enriched uranium), but according to Barak, the time required for this is less than the Israeli defense establishment’s assessment of a year or two.

Barak wrote that Iran’s progress is a manifestation of the utter failure of Trump and Netanyahu’s policies. He is right. Netanyahu hoped that maximum U.S. pressure – imposing heavy sanctions on Iran after Trump’s withdrawal from the agreement – would eventually lead to one of two outcomes: the toppling of the Iranian regime from within or a severe clash with the United States, even culminating in American bombing of Iran’s nuclear sites. The opposite happened: Iran stuck to the project and continued to violate the agreement. Now they are returning to talks with the world powers from a position of strength.

Then-Prime Minister Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Chief of Staff Benny Gantz, in 2012.Government Press Office

Nevertheless, two points must be remembered that do not appear in Barak’s article. First, there is bad blood between the former political allies Barak and Netanyahu, and Barak was one of the outspoken supporters of the protest movement that demanded that Netanyahu step down after he was indicted. Second, from 2009 to 2012, when Barak was defense minister in Netanyahu’s government, the two agreed on Iran and both pushed for an independent Israeli assault against Iran’s nuclear sites.

Only U.S. opposition, together with strong objections by the heads of Israel’s security agencies at that time, prevented such a move – and in hindsight, it is uncertain how intent they truly were on ordering an assault. But during that time, Barak sounded very persuasive. In the autumn of 2011, Haaretz editor-in-chief Aluf Benn and I were invited to the defense minister’s office for a lengthy meeting. When we finished late at night, we left there with the heavy feeling that Barak and Netanyahu had all but decided to attack Iran. Only then did we realize the symbolism of the date – October 5, the eve of the Yom Kippur War.

The end is known. The Americans pressured, the Israeli generals were against it – and Netanyahu and Barak postponed the decision for another year. Then, in the summer of 2012, the story repeated itself and then, too, no decision was made to attack. Meanwhile, Barak and Netanyahu had a falling out, and Netanyahu even accused Barak, strangely, of reaching understandings with the Obama administration behind his back to prevent the possibility of an attack.

Shortly thereafter, Barak left political life. Netanyahu continued to argue against an agreement with Iran, and got himself into a belligerent public stand-off with the Obama administration over signing the agreement in the summer of 2015. Now, with the failure of his policy there for all to see, he is busy making infantile video clips mocking Bennett and Biden.

What now? If Barak is correct, and Iran is already a nuclear threshold state, Israel will have to reassess the nature of the Iranian threat and how to deal with it. Despite statements by senior Israeli officials, a unilateral military option against Iran is not really on the table at this time. The Israel Defense Forces will have to rebuild this capability, which even at its height was only partial, ahead of an extreme scenario in which Iran once again breaks the agreement and this time completes the process of building a nuclear weapon.