by Hugh Fitzgerald
Biden keeps assuring Israel that Iran will not “get a nuclear weapon on my watch.” They don’t believe him, and they certainly are not going to bet the survival of the Jewish state on his assurances
The Bidenites have repeatedly made clear their insensate desire to revive the Iran Deal of 2015. This will free up about $700 billion, currently frozen, for Iran. Tehran will be able to fund in spectacular fashion its terrorist proxies all over the Middle East, including the Houthis in Yemen, the Kata’ib Hezbollah militia in Iraq, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and both Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza. The Islamic Republic will also be able to greatly expand its own military, including the IRGC, and especially, will be able to pay for the continuation, and expansion, of its massive nuclear program at bases all over Iran that Tehran has made clear will be off-limits to inspectors from the IAEA.
Chamberlain threw Czechoslovakia to the Nazi wolves in September 1938, believing he had brought “peace in our time.” Rob Malley, who heads the American negotiators in Vienna is of the same deluded ilk, lacking only the umbrella for the resemblance to be complete. Israel, like Czechoslovakia in 1938, is having deals made by others that will deeply affect its geopolitical fate. Richard Nephew, the deputy special envoy for Iran, along with two others, left the negotiating team in January over their desire for a harder negotiating stance.
The Bidenites have repeatedly been warned by Israel’s top officials that the deal they fear Washington will agree to will allow Iran to continue, at sites barred to IAEA inspectors, its nuclear program. Israel is the country most threatened by that program, but the Jewish state’s repeated warnings about the dangers of a “return to the 2015 deal” has had little effect on the Bidenites in Washington and Vienna. A steady stream of Israeli officials have gone to Washington to express, and explain in detail, their alarm, but all of that now seems to have been to no avail.
The Israelis now realize, as the Mossad director David Barnea has just announced, that in Vienna the “return to 2015” is virtually a “done deal.” Biden keeps assuring Israel that Iran will not “get a nuclear weapon on my watch.” They don’t believe him, and they certainly are not going to bet the survival of the Jewish state on his assurances. They have been dealing with the Iranian threat for many years. Israel’s agents in Iran know far more about the inner workings of the nuclear program, and Tehran’s intentions, than do the Americans.
And now the Israelis have come to the end they feared: they are faced with the reality of that “done deal” and its ineluctable consequences. They no longer have any hope of convincing the Bidenites to turn aside from their folly. Israeli officials have taken a different tack, warning Washington, and the world, that Israel, not being a party to any deal with Iran, does not feel itself constrained, but will do whatever it takes – alone if necessary — to prevent Iran from possessing a nuclear weapon. They will “not be bound by any agreement” between Iran and the major powers, including the U.S. “World,” they are now saying, “you have been warned. We will act to protect our existence.”
Barnea has just issued the most important of those warnings. A report on his view, laid out in meetings with the highest-ranking security officials, can be found here: “Mossad Chief Calls ‘Inevitable’ Nuclear Deal a ‘Strategic Disaster,’” by Sharon Wrobel, Algemeiner, August 25, 2022:
The director of the Mossad warned that the emerging nuclear deal with Iran is a “strategic disaster,” and cautioned that Israel will not be able to sit idly as the danger to its security grows closer.
The agreement is a bad deal that gives Iran a license to manufacture a bomb,” David Barnea was quoted as saying during internal security meetings which Israeli media reported, citing unnamed sources.
Barnea emphasized that Israel would respond accordingly.
“The Mossad is committed to preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. The agreement does not apply to Israel, nor does the freedom of action to continue operating.”…
Barnea argued that the emerging nuclear agreement is worse than the one signed in 2015, when Iran’s potential military dimension was unknown.
“We are copy-pasting the 2015 agreement, and the only thing that remains the same since then is the text of the agreement,” Barnea warned. “Everything else has changed. The world has changed. The Iranians have developed their own advanced centrifuges and the threats and technologies have changed.”
In the seven years that have passed since the 2015 agreement, the Iranians have made great strides in enriching uranium to the near-weapons grade level of 60%, have built new nuclear facilities deep inside the mountain at Fordow that are impregnable to airstrikes,, and have many more nuclear sites dispersed around the country. Iran has also continued to strengthen, through supplies of arm and money, the half-dozen proxies it supports around the Middle East, in Yemen, Iraq, Lebanon., and Gaza.
The recent developments to try and reach an agreement to revive the 2015 nuclear deal come as the US Central Command responded to rocket attacks by Iranian-affiliated militants in northeast Syria on Wednesday.
“There is a double standard here,” Barnea remarked. “On the one hand, they are sitting in Vienna and approaching an agreement – and on the other hand, Iran is acting and sending terrorist arms against the Americans and is deceiving the world.”
While Iranian-backed forces brazenly attack American bases in Syria, and Iran continues to keep some nuclear sites off-limits to IAEA inspectors, the American negotiators in Vienna have shown that none of this has given them pause; they are determined to reach an agreement with Iran that will provide the Iranians with at least $700 billion with which both to support their terrorist proxies and, far worse, to greatly expand their nuclear program, including the development of ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
Barnea cautioned that once sanctions are lifted, hundreds of billions of dollars will be freed to flow into Iran to fund terrorist organizations in the region, including Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Houthi rebels in Yemen, and Hamas, all of which will severely challenge Israeli and American security interests.
The director of Mossad does not mince words: the “done deal” the Americans are about to agree to is a “disaster.” Jerusalem has lost all faith in Washington. And Israel is now – as it was in its wars of survival in 1948 and 1967 – very much alone in trying to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. The task will be much harder because of the Bidenites’ insistence on returning to the 2015 deal, without taking into account the fact that Iran is now much further along in its nuclear program than it was seven years ago. But no one ever got rich betting against Mossad.
Hugh Fitzgerald
Source: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2022/08/mossad-chief-new-iran-agreement-is-a-done-deal-and-a-disaster
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