Just as discussion (although indirect) was taking place between the U.S. and Iran last week in Vienna, an attack was carried out on Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility. Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad was quickly named as the perpetrator of the attack, which came just after Tehran launched the use of new centrifuges and as Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was in Israel extolling the U.S.’s “enduring and ironclad” commitment to Israel.
This is just the latest in a series of provocations designed to scuttle any possibility of the U.S. rejoining the JCPOA. Last summer, a series of explosions linked to Israel rocked Iran, including at Natanz. These took place during the U.S. election campaign, during which Joe Biden promised that he would have the U.S. rejoin the JCPOA that Trump withdrew from in 2018. In November 2020, Israeli operatives killed Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, Iran’s top nuclear scientist.
Back in 2015, as Obama was negotiating what became the JCPOA, Netanyahu came to Washington to address a joint session of the Congress. This month, Mossad chief Yossi Cohen will be coming to Washington in hopes of meeting directly with Biden, to convince leaders that Iran is covering up the true extent of its nuclear program. This accusation is pretty rich, coming as it is from a nation that actually has nuclear weapons and refuses to say anything about them!
