Israel's Iran strategy heavily banks on US getting good nuclear deal, sources say

Yahoo

02-07-2025

Israel also hopes that Trump can successfully place limits on Iran's ballistic missile supply, but this is even more uncertain.
Israel is feeling ascendant after its significant achievements against Iran during the June 13-24 war. Still, sources have said that the current strategy going forward is overwhelmingly banking on the US nailing Tehran down to a tough and long new nuclear deal.
If the US does not secure such an airtight deal, Israel is unclear on what its strategy or next steps would be.
In contrast to the ceasefire deal and end of the war with Hezbollah on November 27, 2024 which in and of itself set clear limits on Hezbollah's right to rearm and clearly outlined how Israel could proactively enforce those limits, the Iran ceasefire simply stopped the fighting between the sides with zero provisions regarding the future.
This lack of a clear plan and certainty is true about how much Israel thinks it can hold back the Islamic Republic from rebuilding its heavily damaged nuclear weapons program, and sources have indicated that the plan may even be less clear regarding imposing and enforcing limits on Iran's ballistic missile program.
Jerusalem's ideal world would be a US-brokered deal that ends Iran's nuclear program or ends its uranium enrichment and advanced centrifuges for a period of multiple decades, as well as keeps its quantity of ballistic missiles with a range to hit Israel down at the current 500-1,000 total missiles level.
But what if Iran only agrees to certain concessions, but not others?
For example, Iran could agree not to enrich uranium for the next year or two, during a period of time when it may not in any event be able to do so after the Israeli and American attacks, followed by enriching uranium at "low levels" like it did under the 2015 JCPOA nuclear deal.
This would basically be accepting the offer that US President Donald Trump was offering them before the war, except now they would be "losing" nothing because they cannot, at least for some period of time, do very much uranium enrichment right now anyway.
Would Trump reject such a deal and potentially allow Iran to rebuild its nuclear program with no limits and no IAEA inspectors?
The part about the IAEA inspectors is not theoretical, as since June 13, the UN nuclear inspectors have had no access to any aspects of the Iranian nuclear program.
In fact, as of Wednesday, Iran also formally announced that it has indefinitely cut ties with the IAEA.
This does not mean that Jerusalem and Washington are blind about what is happening in Iran.
On Tuesday, The Jerusalem Post reported that Israeli satellites took tens of millions of photos of Iranian territory leading up to and ruing the 12-day war.
But wherever the IAEA had electronic surveillance, it had 24-7 surveillance even indoors, even underground, something which is difficult even for top intelligence agencies to achieve.
In short, IAEA inspections have never been sufficient by themselves, but they are crucial and invaluable.
If the world was partially blind regarding Iran's nuclear program when Iran rolled back cooperation with the IAEA in 2021 and again in 2022, it is truly blind now.
The only good news so far on the nuclear front is that even Iran is starting to admit that its nuclear facilities, including Fordow, were badly damaged.
This means that even if the world is blind, there could be several months or more of little new progress by Iran toward reconstituting its nuclear program, no matter how hard it tries.
Prior to the war, the Islamic Republic's ballistic missile program was not even on the table.
Now, Israel will try to inject it onto the table, arguing that Iran's three massive ballistic missile attacks on the Jewish state in April 2024, October 2024, and this month make it a new existential threat.
What if Trump settles for a nuclear deal, but with no limits on ballistic missiles?
Israel was worried about Iran building a facility which could jump its missile inventory from 2,500 to 4,000 in around a year or so, and to 8,800 in around two years.
Such numbers could overwhelm Israel's missile shield in a far more devastating way than even the 28 Israelis killed and 1,250 wounded from the 12-day war.
Presumably, then, Israel would attack before the numbers ballooned that much.
But how soon would Israel attack? When will the numbers get back to the pre-war 2,500 level? Earlier, such as when Iran builds and starts to operate a new ballistic missile production facility? Or yet earlier, as soon as it starts to build such a facility?
Or maybe Israel can agree to Iran building unlimited ballistic missiles as long as their range falls below the 1,500 kilometer range to hit the Jewish state, given that many Iranian missiles do fall below that range.
Will Jerusalem really risk ballistic missile attacks on hospitals, universities, and central Israel just to stop a facility from being built?
And if it won't, will it get harder to respond even as the process goes forward because Israeli leaders will need to admit they are afraid of the Iranian response?
Jerusalem has some time to let Trump try to resolve these issues.
But if Trump cannot resolve them in the coming weeks or months, Israel will likely need to make some clear, hard, and uncompromising decisions about being ready to enforce certain limits, with coordination with the US and a yellow light to strike, even if there is not full-throated approval.