What happened: Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and National Security Council Director Tzahi Hanegbi met yesterday with US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan in Washington.
- Discussion focussed on “enhanced coordination” on the Iranian nuclear threat, while the US readout of the meeting also reports talk of shared concern with Russia’s deepening military relationship with Iran.
- Although not mentioned in the US readout, another focus of discussion is likely to have been the potential for an Israel-Saudi normalisation deal.
- Elsewhere, Israel criticised both the decision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to end its investigation into a suspected undeclared nuclear site at Marivan prompted by Israeli intelligence in 2019, and the UN opting to appoint Iran as the next Vice-President of the General Assembly.
Context: Dermer and Hangebi’s visit coincides with the IAEA’s most recent report on the progress of the Iranian nuclear programme, which revealed that Iran had increased the amount of uranium it had enriched to the near-weapons-grade level of 60% and now has enough to build two nuclear bombs.
- On the ending of its investigation, Iran, the report found, “gave possible explanations for the uranium particles found at the suspicious Marivan site in Abadeh county… the matter is no longer outstanding at this stage.”
- In response, an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman said “The explanations provided by Iran for the presence of nuclear material at the site are not reliable or technically possible. Iran continues to lie to the IAEA and deceive the international community.”
- Of the UN appointment, the Foreign Ministry said “This decision which defies all logic and reason is an insult to the millions of Iranians protesting for their basic freedoms and to the justice, peace and global stability that the UN is supposed to stand for.”
- The IAEA has also seemingly closed its inquiry over the recent discovery of traces of uranium enriched up to 83.7% purity at the underground Fordow site.
- Iran last year ordered the removal of multiple pieces of IAEA monitoring equipment installed in 2015, and the report reveals that while real-time enrichment monitoring equipment on centrifuges enriching uranium to up to 60% at Natanz and Fordow have been reinstalled, many other important elements have not.
- This appears to vindicate Iran’s belligerent approach, whilst the Biden Administration remains apparently convinced that a diplomatic route to preventing an Iranian nuke is possible and is actively pursuing a renewed agreement with Iran.
- The logic of the US’s so-called “less-for-less” strategy is that with Iran desperate for economic relief, particularly via the ban on its oil exports, a partial lifting of sanctions can be temporarily effective in securing Iranian commitments not to pursue uranium enrichment to 90%.
- Israel has long vehemently opposed this strategy, and officials in the Prime Minister’s Bureau have told the media that this remains the case.
- Some Israeli analysts, though, argue that the Netanyahu government has, for now, accepted defeat in its efforts to convince the US to abandon the diplomatic route and is pursuing maximum advantage within an imperfect context.
- This is likely to involve a “circular” deal, whereby in exchange for reluctant Israeli acceptance of the American line on Iran the US will show flexibility in facilitating Israel’s long-desired normalisation with Saudi Arabia.
- In recent months the administration has shown a greater desire to step up its engagement on Israel-Saudi normalisation. In early May, Sullivan met with Mohammed bin Salman in Jeddah, where the Saudi Crown Prince reiterated Saudi demands that any move towards normalisation be accompanied by warmed relations with, and tangible rewards from, the US.
- Saudi demands are likely to include: cooperation with its pursuit of an apparently civilian nuclear programme; the sale of advanced US weapons; security guarantees, amounting to de facto NATO status.
- Although Saudi normalisation is a key Israeli priority, not least for its implications for formalising shared concerns over Iran, the costs demanded by Riyadh will likely to be of concern to Jerusalem.
- The introduction of another nuclear power to the Middle East, and a reduction in Israel’s qualitative regional edge in terms of advanced weapons which might come with US arms sales, are serious developments.
- Not all are convinced that acquiescence to the American Iran strategy, in return for the possibility – and only the possibility – of Saudi normalisation is a price worth paying in any case. Former Israeli National Security Council director Meir Ben-Shabbat said yesterday that “An agreement that leaves Iran close to being a nuclear threshold state, frees up its money and allows it to build up [military capabilities]—is terrible [and] will allow Iran to enjoy the best of all worlds: to continue with its nuclear efforts deceitfully and covertly, and to enjoy resources and its new position in the global arena.”
- Recent satellite images show tunnels being dug near the Natanz nuclear facility, apparently to 80-100 metre depths. If so, this potentially places them beyond the reach of even the most advanced US “bunker-buster” bombs.
Looking ahead: The IAEA’s board of governors is set to meet next week, and Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen is working in concert with Hanegbi and Dermer in pushing for a statement of condemnation of Iran’s latest uranium increases to be issued at the end of the meeting.
- A leading security expert told The Economist this week warned that although Iran still lacks the missile capability to deliver a nuclear warhead, its fissile material stocks are sufficient to produce seven nuclear bombs inside six months.
