A senior U.S. official told reporters in a background briefing at the White House yesterday that the White House doesn’t expect an agreement to end the war with Iran Sunday and thinks it could take several days for the deal’s approval by Iran’s leadership, including Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei. While U.S. officials are optimistic that a deal will be signed within days, they also acknowledge it has not been finalized and could still fall apart. “We are in a very good place—but there are ways in which the deal can be undermined,” a senior U.S. official said, reported Israeli journalist and IDF Unit 8200 veteran Barak Ravid in Axios.
While the U.S. is thus blaming the alleged slowness of Iranian decision making for the delay, the Iranians have accused the U.S. of moving the goal posts. An informed source told Tasnim yesterday that despite prior arrangements reached through the Pakistani mediator and with the mediation of some regional countries, the Americans are now obstructing the process. However, he said, Iran has stated that it will not retreat from its red lines.
The matter at issue, according to this report, is the release of Iran’s frozen assets, which, the source said, is one of the factors that has so far prevented the finalization of an agreement. The informed source further stressed that, based on Iran’s experience of repeated breaches and obstruction by the US, Iran will not allow the issue of asset release to be reduced to paper promises or vague commitments.
But lurking in the background is Benjamin Netanyahu. After his conference call with Arab and other regional leaders on May 24, President Donald Trump spoke by phone with the Israeli prime minister. The senior US official cited by Ravid above, reported that Netanyahu and his team have been involved in the process of negotiations, the U.S. official said. “We don’t want them to be blindsided. The coordination has been quite close.”
But Israeli officials told Ravid that Netanyahu is deeply concerned about the emerging deal and skeptical Iran’s supreme leader will approve it. In their phone call Saturday, Netanyahu told Trump that Israel will “preserve its freedom of action against threats on all fronts, including Lebanon,” an Israeli official said. Netanyahu said later in a statement that Trump “reaffirmed Israel’s right to defend itself against threats on every front, including Lebanon.” All of that is shorthand for arrogating to itself to resort to military action anytime it sees fit to do so.
“We agreed that any final agreement with Iran must eliminate the nuclear danger … dismantling Iran’s nuclear enrichment sites and removing its enriched nuclear material from its territory,” Netanyahu said.
And Trump remains obsessed with Iran’s enriched uranium. He not only wants the 450 kg of 60 percent uranium, but another 2,000 kg of uranium enriched to lower levels. What no one will say is that had Trump not pulled the U.S. out of the 2015 nuclear deal, also known as the JCPOA–which he has repeatedly lied put Iran on the path to a nuclear weapon–in 2018, the 60 percent uranium would not even exist. Mohamed Baqer Qalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s parliament, presided the legislation that mandated enrichment to higher levels in 2020. That legislation was part of Iran’s “strategic action” against sanctions after Trump’s ripping up of the JCPOA.
Instead, Ravid goes on: As part of the draft agreement, Iran has committed to discussing a moratorium on uranium enrichment, but the parties still need to negotiate how long this moratorium will last. “We want to see a substantial commitment to forgo enrichment. We think we will get it. We feel good about where we are on the broad commitments regarding the enrichment issue,” the U.S. official said.
The principle driving the deal is that the more Iran concedes on enrichment and nuclear material, the more sanctions relief it receives, the U.S. official said. “No dust, no dollars. If no highly enriched uranium is given [up], they will get no relief,” the U.S. official said. “The more they do, the more they get. There will be no immediate unfreezing of funds.”
Meanwhile, Israel’s nuclear arsenal is not even mentioned.