With negotiations over reviving the nuclear treaty now struggling in Vienna, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has been echoing the ominous rhetoric of his predecessor, Benjamin Netanyahu, and accusing Iran of using “nuclear blackmail” as a bargaining tactic by escalating its uranium enrichment.
This approach enabled “Iran to accumulate a lot more material, work on advanced centrifuges, and maybe other things that we don’t know about, all which brought Iran closer than ever before” to acquiring a nuclear bomb, said Yoel Guzansky, former head of the Iran desk at Israel’s National Security Council and a senior fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS). “The nuclear deal was flawed, but at least it put a lid on Iran’s advancement, which we don’t have now.”
The former officials say the pact had subjected Iran to restrictions and to international inspections that held in check crucial elements of the nuclear program, while enhanced sanctions have achieved far less.
“Today, it’s clear that maximum pressure did not yield its political objectives,” said Raz Zimmt, a former military adviser on Iran. He said the policy may actually have accelerated Iranian nuclear progress and that Iran now has the capability of producing enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb on four weeks’ notice.
“It doesn’t matter how much pressure you put on them, the Iranians see their nuclear program as an insurance for the regime,” said Zimmt, who is now at the INSS, affiliated with Tel Aviv University.
When Trump pulled out of the pact, much of the Israeli public cheered. Netanyahu took credit for making it happen, and Bennett hailed it as “a great day for the free world.” Many Israelis agreed with their government that it was up to Israel to pursue an Iran policy of zero engagement, maximum economic pressure and clandestine sabotage attacks.