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Israeli Defense Officials: A Fast-Paced Return to the Iranian Nuclear Deal Would Be Disastrous
(Al-Monitor) Ben Caspit - Both Qasem Soleimani, the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force, and Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the mastermind behind Iran's nuclear program, were irreplaceable strategic assets. Since Soleimani's killing by the Americans in January 2020, Western intelligence has detected an Iranian pullback from various arenas and difficulty in maintaining its hold on parts of Iraq and Syria. The level of Iran's determination in this regard has also plunged, since he was the one who constantly agitated for continued investment in Iran's regional expansion and entrenchment. Israel is looking ahead at Biden's administration with concern over a fast-paced return to the nuclear agreement forged in 2015. Biden's people have yet to establish an intensive dialogue channel with the Israelis that would allow them to weigh in on the existential threat from Iran. "Much has changed in the five years since the nuclear agreement was signed," said an Israeli intelligence source. "We want to update the Americans and illustrate the rare opportunity that the United States now has to take advantage of Iran's situation." The main U.S. mistake, Israel says, is the urgency it feels to revert to the way things were before Trump pulled the U.S. out of the deal. Such a move would be disastrous, according to high-level Israeli defense officials. "Iran is far more vulnerable these days and susceptible to powerful levers, and there is no reason to volunteer to go easy on them and return to the agreement without ensuring that real amendments can be introduced into the deal," said a top-ranking Israeli security source.