Former Military Intelligence Director Maj. Gen. (res.) Tamir Hayman's remarks in an interview with Israel Hayom strengthen the impression that Israel has relinquished its war on Iran's nuclear project.
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Why do the Iranians now have enough highly enriched uranium in their possession for one nuclear facility? There is only one explanation, and that is that US President Joe Biden's administration has not put a credibly military option for Iran on the table.
Former Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz, a veteran politician with knowledge of the Iran issue, determined that as long as the Americans kept a credible military option on the table, the Iranians would not dare enrich uranium above 20%. This is how it was under former US President Barack Obama, who repeatedly said the military option was on the table and even acted to develop the means for bombing underground facilities. This was also the case under Obama's successor Donald Trump, who took out Revolutionary Guards Commander Qassem Soleimani and changed the face of the Middle East. In May 2021, when the Iranians became convinced Biden was interested in securing a deal at any price and that his policy did not include possible military action, they began to enrich uranium to 60%.
Israel failed in that it was unable to get the Biden administration to put the military option on the table. Hayman's remarks confirm Jerusalem has been conducting itself as if the nuclear deal has already been restored. It has clarified to senior security officials that Israel cannot act against nuclear targets included in the accord, while it remains at liberty to act against strategic targets related to missile development or the Revolutionary Guards.
At a US Senate hearing, US Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley noted an "Israeli general supports the deal." Senior Israeli security officials have aided the propaganda of the initiators of the nuclear accord since the Obama administration. That is a simple fact and an unfortunate one at that. The question, of course, is how a highly esteemed senior commander can say as Hayman did that "the nuclear accord is good for the Jews."
Gen. Eyal Zamir, who is in the running for the next IDF chief of staff, argued in a paper on the importance of thwarting Iran's strategy that for the Iranians, the nuclear deal is a temporary step aimed only at allowing Tehran to achieve long-term nuclear goals without international pressure.
"The objective of victory theory is to instill defeat in the Revolutionary Guards," Zamir wrote in a paper published by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Steinitz, and likely Opposition Leader Benjamin Netanyahu as well, believe Israel's security leaders are ignoring the principle objective of instilling a sense of defeat in the nuclear project.
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