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Why Israel Is Stepping Up Its Planning to Deal with Iran's Nuclear Threat
(Times of Israel) David Horovitz - There is a fundamental disconnect at the heart of the Biden administration's strategy for preventing Iran from attaining nuclear weapons. The U.S. is trying to persuade Iran to resume compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal. But it also says it seeks a longer and stronger deal that would address the gaping flaws in the original deal. In other words, it is having a very hard time persuading Tehran to return to a lousy accord, yet hopes it will be able to convince the ayatollahs to agree to a more effective one. While the nations party to the 2015 accord see the combination of the ayatollahs and a devastating nuclear weapons capability as a strategic danger, for Israel, a nuclear Iran is an existential threat. Since the U.S. does not regard a nuclear Iran with the same degree of concern as Israel does, Israel is ramping up its concrete practical preparations. For perhaps three years after the deal was inked, Israel essentially discarded its operational planning to decimate Iran's nuclear facilities. With the U.S. locked into a diplomatic arrangement, Israel recognized that such an operation was unthinkable. However, in the aftermath of the U.S. withdrawal from the deal, and the open Iranian breaching of the accord, serious planning is again the order of the day. Israel is genuinely readying for action, in the hope that the very candid sincerity of that planning will deter the extremists in Tehran, rendering such a strike unnecessary.