This interview with Israeli Minister of Intelligence Yuval Steinitz in the Financial Times provides an interesting insight into what may be a key difference between the Obama and Netanyahu positions regarding a nuclear deal with Iran. After detailing some of the substantive areas of disagreement, such as the number of centrifuges that Iran will be permitted to retain, and its ability to continue research into more advanced centrifuges, Steinitz notes that if the P5+1 pushes Iran harder on key areas
There can be no deal immediately, but this doesn’t mean that there will be no deal after a few months or maybe a year or two because if the pressure is sufficient and if the Iranians are forced to choose either to save their economy or to save their uranium enrichment facilities, I’m confident?.?.?.?they will choose to save their economy.”
This statement is reminiscent of the comments made last month by Mossad Chief Tamir Pardo. The comments as first reported were falsely interpreted as an assertion that additional sanctions would “tank” the nuclear negotiations, but, as explained in a press statement, Pardo “used this expression [throwing a grenade into negotiations] as a metaphor to describe the possibility of creating a temporary crisis in the negotiations at the end of which talks would resume under improved conditions.” The same statement also said that “The Head of the Mossad noted further that in the absence of strong pressure, the Iranians will make no meaningful compromises.”
As I have mentioned before, Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes has made clear that striking a nuclear deal with Iran is just as important to the President as was passing the healthcare law. Michael Doran’s essay on the subject also details the centrality of a deal with Iran to Obama’s own vision of his administration. If the course of action that Netanyahu, Steinitz, and Pardo all seem to prefer is followed, a tougher and better deal with Iran could, ultimately, be reached. But as both Steinitz’s and Pardo’s comments make clear, such a deal would simply take longer to achieve — and it might not come about for as long as two years, or until after January 2017, when Obama leaves office.
Obama’s real problem with Netanyahu, then, appears not to be that Netanyahu wants to sabotage the negotiations, or that Netanyahu does not want to reach an agreement with Iran (despite the President’s making that claim to anyone who will listen). Obama’s problem is that he might not end up getting the credit for it. By most accounts, Obama appears to be willing to make a deal that will allow Iran to be a nuclear threshold state. From Pardo’s and Steinitz’s comments, an easy inference is that the most important component of this deal, from the US President’s perspective, is that it happen quickly.
The threat that Netanyahu poses is that if the US Congress agrees with him, and imposes additional sanctions over a Presidential veto, it will simply take longer to get the deal that will benefit everyone — possibly into the next administration. Obama is selling out both Israel and the US, as well as other US allies such as Saudi Arabia that oppose Iranian regional hegemony, for his own personal legacy. Let’s all hope and pray that his legacy doesn’t end up being a nuclear Iran.
