Netanyahu Ally Says Israel Will Attack Iran Absent a ‘New Nuclear Deal’
Both the Pentagon’s recently released Nuclear Posture
Review and National Defense Strategy say Tehran has no nuclear weapons.
Washington believes Tehran "is not pursuing one."
by Connor Freeman Posted
on November 4, 2022
If Washington does not secure a new nuclear deal or
take military action itself, incoming Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will
attack Iran, according to Tzachi Hanegbi, a longtime member of Israel’s Likud
party. The former settlement minister issued the
warning while speaking with Channel 12 news on Friday.
Hanegbi declared that Netanyahu “will act, in my
assessment, to destroy the nuclear facilities in Iran.” He said “Israel will
for the first time be facing a regime with nuclear weapons” and went on to
describe the alleged Iranian threat as a “fire that’s been burning inside
[Netanyahu] for more than 25 years.” Hanegbi previously claimed his
country would go to war with Tehran if Joe Biden won the 2020 election and
tried to return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the nuclear deal
with Iran.
In recent weeks, State Department spokesman Ned Price
and Biden’s special envoy for Iran Robert Malley have said the nuclear deal is
no longer the administration’s “focus.” Malley went so far as to say “It is not
on our agenda” and that officials will not “waste time” attempting to revive
the JCPOA.
“[We] are already looking at the situation as if there
is no nuclear deal,” a senior Biden administration official told Axios
last month, adding that the White House is “taking steps to ensure the US has a
ready military option.”
However, despite an endless stream of nuclear rhetoric
emanating from Washington and Tel Aviv, the Pentagon’s latest Nuclear Posture
Review (NPR) notes that “Iran does not currently pose a nuclear threat,”
instead claiming it continues to “develop capabilities that would enable it to
produce a nuclear weapon should it make the decision to do so.” It acknowledges
that the JCPOA “previously constrained” those activities.
Beginning a year after the Donald Trump administration
illegally withdrew from the deal, Iran expanded its nuclear program by building
advanced centrifuges and enriching some uranium tetrafluoride
to 20%, for use at the Tehran Medical Research Reactor, and some uranium
hexafluoride to 60%. Iran has said it
will not enrich beyond 60% purity even if the talks fail.
Iran has never attempted to enrich uranium to 90%
purity, which is the minimum required for weapons grade.
Those decisions came as a direct response to
Washington’s renewed economic war and myriad Israeli attacks, including
sabotage and bombings at nuclear facilities, as well as targeted killings of
top Iranian scientists. Though the JCPOA limits Iran’s uranium enrichment to
3.67%, Tehran’s responses are permitted under the deal, which contains language
allowing Iran to walk back its commitments if the other parties have done the
same. Despite scaling back compliance, Iran never abandoned the JCPOA, and its
retaliatory measures, demanded by parliament, were designed to build leverage
for negotiations.
Moreover, the NPR also plainly states “Iran
does not today possess a nuclear weapon and we currently believe it is not
pursuing one.” The new National Defense Strategy includes the same admission.
Biden took an extremely hard line during the indirect,
EU-brokered negotiations which aimed to return Washington to the JCPOA. Since
taking office, Biden has only expanded Trump’s
“maximum pressure” sanctions campaign against the Islamic Republic and embarked
on other hostile policies in coordination with regional allies.
Earlier this year, the Israelis launched
multiple drone strikes and assassinations
inside Iran, while the US began bombing Syria repeatedly in
August, in what the Pentagon described as a message to Tehran. The United
States and Israel have also sought to surround Iran with a NATO-style
alliance made up of America’s Gulf dictatorship
partners.
Iran nonetheless made some significant concessions during
the nuclear talks, which seemingly brought both sides much closer to a deal
after the European Union presented a “final” proposal. However, negotiations
stalled in September after Tehran made demands regarding sanctions relief and
guarantees which the US refused to accept after consulting with the
Israelis. Tel Aviv and bipartisan Iran hawks in
Congress intervened with a full court press to prevent Biden
from lifting sanctions.
The Israelis also demanded Washington ensure a
“credible military threat is put on the table” to compel concessions regarding
Iran’s ballistic missile deterrent. This is likely similar to the new deal
Hanegbi is referring to.
In September, American B-52s, eyeing Tehran, flew over the Middle East,
while National Security Council Spokesman John Kirby announced that Biden
was requesting “other
available options” against Iran. The talks stalled out that same month.
Concurrently, the Pentagon inked a
nearly $1 billion contract with Boeing to provide Israel with four refueling
planes – which it would need in order to reach Iran with its bombers. The
planes are not expected to be delivered until 2025. Without the new aircraft,
Israel would have to rely on aging tankers or attempt to refuel in the United
Arab Emirates or Saudi Arabia. Earlier this year, the Israeli military’s chief
of staff Aviv Kohavi said “[we continue] to prepare vigorously for an attack on
Iran and must prepare for every development and every scenario.” If Tel Aviv
started this war, the US would be likely to intervene, as Israel also lacks the
bunker-busting bombs needed to strike Iran’s underground nuclear facilities.
If Israel was truly concerned about Iran’s alleged
pursuit of nuclear weapons, they would support the JCPOA, which mandates the
most comprehensive International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections regime
ever implemented.
As Antiwar.com columnist Ted Snider has noted,
“[p]rior to the US illegally pulling out of the JCPOA, Iran was in full
compliance with its JCPOA commitments. Eleven consecutive [IAEA] reports
verified that Iran was completely and consistently
in compliance with their commitments under
the agreement.”
At any rate, Iran has been a signatory of the
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) since 1970. Israel has never signed the NPT due
to its open-secret nuclear arsenal thought to contain hundreds of
weapons – technically making decades of American aid to Tel Aviv illegal under
US foreign assistance laws.
Connor Freeman is the assistant editor and a
writer at the Libertarian Institute, primarily
covering foreign policy. He is a co-host of the Conflicts of Interest podcast.
His writing has been featured in media outlets such as Antiwar.com,
Counterpunch, and the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity. He has also
appeared on Liberty Weekly, Around the Empire, and Parallax Views. You can follow him on Twitter @FreemansMind96.
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