The Ukraine war has held up the finalization of a new nuclear deal with Iran. This might be the only good thing to come out of this evil war, which poses a threat to world peace. Not that the delay is any reason to rejoice: there are no signs that the holdup can be used to persuade the US to sign a less bad deal.
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The Americans conceded on everything. Of course, they will claim otherwise, but the facts show that Washington waved a white flag. Nothing of all their promises of a "longer and stronger" agreement remains. The new deal is a technical extension of the previous one, with one dramatic difference – if the former deal would not expire for many years, the end of the current one is just around the corner.
It will happen in part at the end of 2025, when Iran will be able to enrich as much uranium as it wants. By the end of the decade, it will expire entirely, and Iran will be free from all restrictions the deal imposes on it.
But since the original deal was signed in 2015, Iran has come a long way, and the new deal ignores that progress. In 2015, Iran was still using old centrifuges for enrichment, which took more time to build up the quantity needed for a nuclear bomb. But the new centrifuges it has developed and installed since then allow it to enrich uranium much more quickly. Under the new agreement, Iran is committing to get rid of all the enriched uranium it has compiled in the past two years since it has been violating the deal. This is the only stipulation on which the Americans insisted – that Iran go back to the starting point in terms of the quantity – the same as the original deal demanded. They caved on the matter of quality, meaning that if Iran decides to violate the deal, or once it is no longer in force, it can use the new centrifuges to enrich as much uranium as necessary for a nuclear bomb in two months.
Who is the superpower?
The more the Vienna negotiations moved forward, the more Israel despaired. The Iranians thwarted the Americans at every step. At times, it was hard to know who the superpower was, and who was the country buckling under sanctions – which, by the way, will be almost entirely lifted. Iran will receive $7 billion that has been frozen in various bank accounts, and sanctions on various institutions and individuals, such as Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, will be removed.
That point is particularly astonishing – Khamenei, the foremost terrorist leader in the world and the driving force behind the Islamic bomb, will be free from any restrictions, while Saudi crown prince Mohammad Bin Salman, a close ally of the US, is banned from Washington because of his alleged involvement in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
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In the meantime, the Americans are "insisting" in the negotiations that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps remains under sanctions, but anyone following the talks thinks that on this matter, too, Washington will give in, if only to be done with the headache. On their way to a new deal, the Americans also skipped dealing with all the holes in the original agreement. Other aspects of Iran's nuclear program vital to the regime acquiring a nuclear weapon have not been addressed; nothing has been said about the missiles and rockets Iran is developing to carry a bomb (as well as to harass its regional opponents); and the matter of Iran's sponsorship of regional terrorism, including against the Americans themselves, has certainly not been dealt with.
Just this week, two high-ranking IRGC officers were killed in an airstrike near Damascus attributed to Israel. The IDF is on alert – Iran has been wanting to cause Israel pain for some time, and now much more so. Iran also thinks it has the flexibility to deal a blow while the nuclear talks are underway. In the past, it has tried to attack Israel using UAVs, and that is the main tactic that can be expected given the amount of UAVs it has distributed to its satellites.
In the last attack, a day before the Bennett-Putin meeting in Moscow, Israel made it clear that it was determined to keep taking action against Iranian activity in the region. It is vital to preserve this freedom of operation in Iran itself. While under the new agreement, Israel will not be able to take action against anything related to uranium enrichment without outraging the entire world, the other nuclear components – certainly missiles and rockets, drones, and terrorism – will be exposed to attack.
This war will have to take place in Iran itself. There are several reasons for that, but the main one is the asymmetry in Israel being vulnerable to attacks by Iranian satellites, while Tehran keeps itself far away from danger. Even if actions in Iran, in which the Mossad is supposed to take the lead role, would put Israel at risk of a retaliation, they would still create a dilemma for Tehran and make it clear to the Iranian leaders and people that they are not out of bounds (or as Israel defines it – striking the octopus rather than battling its tentacles.)
The working assumption in Israel's defense establishment is that Iran will not only not ignore an attack, it will rush to strike first. Iran has no lack of chutzpah, and no lack of money. Not only are billions of dollars being unfrozen, it will also see massive revenue from oil. A year ago, Iran produced some 600,000 barrels per day and sold them at a quarter of the price.The new deal will allow it to produce 2.7 million barrels per day, and the Ukraine war guarantees it can charge top dollar. In other words, Iran will now be earning 16 (!) times as much from oil sales, an enormous amount of money, at least some of which will be put to nefarious purposes.
These projected developments are rocking the Middle East. Every country is responding in its own way, according to its own concerns. The United Arab Emirates (and they aren't the only ones) are trying to move closer to Tehran, with Emirati national security advisor Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed having made two recent visits to Tehran and announcing that his country was considering investing tens of billions of dollars in Iran. This doesn't mean that the UAE is moving away from Israel, but it wants to buy safety from Iranian aggression.
Turkey, on the other hand, sees Israel as a regional power and wants to join forces. This is not because Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has any love for Israel, all he has are interests. In the new Middle East, where the automatic defense from the Americans is lacking and the Russians' cynical presence prevails, interests are the name of the game. When Bahrain looks at the West's inefficacy against Russia's brutality in Ukraine, it understands that it could be next. So it wants to protect itself, and strengthening an open alliance with Israel is one way it can. This week, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi visited Manama, following visits there by the prime minister and defense minister – more proof of the close ties between the two countries, but also Bahrain's fear of Iran.
Israel is trying not to drop the ball. It's already complicated, and will become much more complicated the moment the new nuclear deal is signed. Therefore, it is also vital that Israel maintain open channels with both Washington and Moscow. This doesn't mean that Israel shouldn't do more to provide humanitarian help to Ukraine, but in the broader context, Israel is trying to do the impossible: mediate, and also avoid clashing with either side, direct or indirect, in the conflict. For now, it has been successful, but the real test still lies ahead, especially given the changes expected on the Iranian front, which promise that at least one zone will remain open and bloody.
