Israel, increasingly cognizant of an existential threat, is concerned that President Trump is rushing to make a quick deal with Tehran that would miss an opportunity to neutralize the Islamic Republic’s nuclear capabilities. 

“Israel is thinking long term, Trump thinks short term,” an Iran watcher at Misgav Institute, Yossi Mansharof, tells the Sun. “Following the trauma of October 7 Israelis are more aware of the existential threat Iran represents. Meanwhile, I don’t remember any time that Iran has been as vulnerable as it is now. I don’t think Trump is using it well.”

Talking to reporters Wednesday, Mr. Trump confirmed that he had warned Prime Minister Netanyahu last week against striking Iran militarily. “I told him this would be inappropriate to do right now, because we’re very close to a solution,” the president said. “We can blow up a lab, and nobody’s going to be in the lab, as opposed to everybody being in the lab and blowing it up.” As of now, he added, “I think they want to make a deal. And if we can make a deal, I’d save a lot of lives.” 

Israelis are wary of such a deal. “I doubt that the Iranians will agree to blow up a laboratory, or anything,” Mr. Mansharof says. As skepticism grows, Mr. Netanyahu “instructed the air force and the security apparatus to prepare for attacking Iran even without American support,” YNet reported Thursday.

Other reports, based on American intelligence sources, claim that an Israeli attack could be conducted within “seven hours” after a decision is made. It is unclear if leaks from unidentified officials are designed to undermine the American-Iranian negotiations or, conversely, to increase pressure on Iran in the talks.

Tehran, though, seems encouraged by disagreements between America and Israel. “Our hands are on the trigger,” the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps chief, Hossein Salami, boasted Wednesday. If the Israelis “make a mistake, they will receive responses that will make them forget their past.”

Talks in Oman and at Rome reportedly included ideas like an interim freeze on Iranian uranium enrichment, or enrichment being done outside of Iran, as it shares civilian nuclear energy with Gulf states. Either way, the mullahs seem eager to play for time.

“Iran has a habit of seemingly agreeing to issues at one stage of negotiations, only to try and reopen those same issues later on,” the policy director at United Against Nuclear Iran, Jason Brodsky, tells the Sun.

Time, though, is not on America’s side. At the United Nations, for one, a 2015 Security Council resolution that endorsed that year’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action includes a clause allowing reimposition of all global sanctions that had existed before it was put into place. That “snapback” option expires in October. 

“The risk of a framework statement of principles is that it allows Iran’s regime to avert snapback and erode ideal conditions for a military strike on Iran’s nuclear program,” Mr. Brodsky says. 

One such ideal condition is that Iran’s “axis of resistance” has all but collapsed. Other than the Houthis in Yemen, which launched a ballistic missile at central Israel Thursday, the regional Iranian proxy network surrounding Israel has suffered significant losses. Separately, Israel has decimated much of Iran’s air defenses, opening it for attacks. The Iranian economy is in shambles and anti-regime protests are re-emerging. A nationwide trucker strike has nearly paralyzed commerce inside the country.

These conditions, if backed by a credible threat of military attack and maximum economic pressure, could be ideal for forming a good nuclear deal. Yet, Mr. Mansharof says, Mr. Trump “lacks a strategy,” and prefers a quick agreement to an effective one. 

“A good deal is not just preventing enrichment, which by now is a tiny step that means little,” a former Israeli minister of strategic affairs, Yuval Steinitz, told Kann News Thursday. Currently the head of a major Israeli arms manufacturer, Rafael industries, Mr. Steinitz was a leader of Israel’s ultimately unsuccessful efforts to influence the Obama-era JCPOA. 

 “What we stressed back in 2013 and 2015 is that it’s not enough to stop enrichment or dismantle facilities,” Mr. Steinitz says. “A good deal means preventing Iran’s ability to enrich. If that ability remains, then the Iranians might fear America or us for a couple of years, but once Trump’s presidency is over they can rebuild the infrastructure.” Israel, he adds, “can do great things” militarily, “but of course it’s always better to do it in cooperation with America.” 

Mr. Netanyahu might nevertheless consider going it alone. “Israel can’t agree to an Iranian threat of erasing it off the map while it waits and does nothing,” Mr. Mansharof says. “Right now there’s an opportunity to act, which I’m not sure could ever return.”