Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett is in Washington for his first meeting with President Joe Biden since taking office. Yesterday, he met with National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. While there are other items on the bilateral agenda, Iran is the dominating issue. On that, two senior administration officials, briefing on background, said yesterday that Biden and Bennett will “of course, discuss Israel’s [Iran’s] destabilizing activities in the region and particularly a very effective bilateral program we’ve set up with the Israelis during a strategic consultation group that we had with them a couple months ago on countering Iranian UAVs.”
The Biden Administration still seems to be formally committed to restoring the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, known as the JCPOA. “And if you look at any data point of Iran’s nuclear program — from breakout, which is now down to just a few months; to number of centrifuges and advanced centrifuges; to stockpiles; to enrichment to 20 percent and now 60 percent; to experimentation with uranium metal — I could go on and on and on — this is a very alarming picture,” said one of the officials. “And none of these things were happening when the JCPOA was in place.”
He also said that the maximum pressure policy was not being effective but that the U.S. would not be lifting any of the sanctions “because we’ve been very clear that sanctions relief will come through Vienna.”
After the meetings at the State Department and the Pentagon, a “senior member” of Bennett’s entourage told the Times of Israel that the US administration recognizes that a return to the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran might not be possible, and as a result is open to Israeli approaches to countering Iran. The staffer said on Wednesday evening that on Iran, the Israeli team’s positions received “significant attention” from the administration, as “they themselves understand that it may be that we find ourselves in a reality without an agreement, and [even] if there is an agreement, there are holes that must be filled.”
Just as Bennett’s plane was landing in Washington, Defense Minister Benny Gantz and IDF chief of staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kohavi were talking about military plans to deal with Iran’s nuclear program. “The progress in the Iranian nuclear program has led the IDF to speed up its operational plans, and the defense budget that was recently approved is meant to address this,” Kohavi said, speaking to military correspondents this week, ToI reported.
Gantz issued a similar threat on Wednesday, telling foreign diplomats that Israel may have to take military action against Iran in order to stop its nuclear program. “The State of Israel has the means to act and will not hesitate to do so. I do not rule out the possibility that Israel will have to take action in the future in order to prevent a nuclear Iran,” Gantz said. “Iran is only two months away from acquiring the materials necessary for a nuclear weapon. We do not know if the Iranian regime will be willing to sign an agreement and come back to the negotiation table, and the international community must build a viable ‘Plan B’ in order to stop Iran in its tracks towards a nuclear weapon,” he added.
“At the end of the day, the goal is to reach a ‘longer, stronger and broader’ agreement than the previous one,” Gantz said. “The Iranian nuclear program could incite an arms race in the region and the entire world.”
ToI notes that the budget agreed on by Bennett, Gantz, and Finance Minister Avigdor Liberman last month, includes 2 billion shekels (about $620 million) specifically to deal with Iran. The funds, as well as additional billions that are expected to be apportioned, are meant to be used to purchase the equipment and munitions that would be needed to carry out an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. The last time this happened, ToI continues, was in 2011-2012, when the government invested NIS 11 billion ($3.38 billion) in preparing for an attack which ultimately never happened.
