Israel, Amid Reports of an Imminent American Pact With Iran, Issues a Stern Warning About the Dangers of a Deal

Amid reports that an imminent American-Iranian agreement that would remove sanctions and allow the Islamic Republic to essentially be a threshold nuclear power, Israel is voicing growing alarm about President Biden’s drive for a diplomatic deal. The White House is denying the growing reports that a pact may be struck between American and Iran related to uranium enrichment. Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, isn’t buying it, and is speaking out in what amounts to a stern tone of voice.“I reiterated our consistent position that returning to the nuclear agreement with Iran will not stop the Iranian nuclear program and will only enable Iran to channel funds to the terrorist organizations that it sponsors in the Middle East and around Israel’s borders,” Mr. Netanyahu said at the start of the Israeli cabinet’s weekly meeting earlier today.According to a report last week in a London-based website, Middle East Eye, Wasington and Tehran are “nearing a temporary deal that would swap some sanctions relief for reducing Iranian uranium enrichment activities.” The site, which has close ties to Qatar, said its reporting was based on two sources it did not identify. “This report is false and misleading,” a spokesperson for President Biden’s National Security Council told Reuters. “Any reports of an interim deal are false.” The Iranian embassy at the United Nations concurred.“Our comment is the same as the White House comment,” it said in a statement that deviated from Tehran’s Pavlovian reflex of saying black each time Washington says white. “Any time two adversaries sing from the same sheet of music, you know something suspicious is happening,” an Iran watcher at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Behnam Ben Taleblu, tells the Sun. Following a conversation with Secretary Blinken last Thursday, Mr. Netanyahu seems to harbor similar suspicions.“I reiterated that no arrangement with Iran will be binding on Israel,” the premier told his cabinet. “With or without an agreement, we will continue to do whatever is necessary to defend the State of Israel.”Several reports described the pending deal as an Iranian promise to freeze all uranium enrichment at the current level, in return for easing an oil embargo and unfreezing Iranian accounts held in South Korean, Iraqi, and other banks. Iraq is already paying the Islamic Republic $2.76 billion in gas and oil debts, after Baghdad received permission to override American sanctions that would ban such payments. Baghdad’s foreign minister, Fuad Hussein, told reporters that Mr. Blinken has approved the payment during a meeting at Riyadh on Thursday. According to the Middle East Eye’s report, the State Department’s Iran point man, Robert Malley, and Iran’s new ambassador to the United Nations, Amir Saeed Iravani, have met several times in New York to advance the proposed interim deal.Additionally, a top White House adviser on the Mideast, Brett McGurk, visited Oman last week at the same time that Iran’s top nuclear negotiator, Ali Bagheri Kan, landed there. Axios is reporting that while the two officials have not met face to face, they’ve exchanged messages through Omani intermediaries. Washington “made it clear that Iran will pay a heavy price if it moves forward with 90 percent uranium enrichment, the level needed to produce a nuclear weapon,” according to Axios. Yet, if as reported, the Islamic Republic will be permitted to retain its current stockpiles it will be on the threshold of becoming a nuclear armed state. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran has a sizable stock of uranium enriched to 60 percent purity, which is often described as one flip of the switch away from bomb-level 90 percent. The IAEA is also reporting suspicious activity in the nuclear weaponization field. In a series of English-language tweets Sunday, Supreme Leader Khamenei, reiterated the proforma denial that Iran seeks nuclear arms, which, he wrote, are forbidden in the Islamic religion. The nuclear program, he contended, is for civilian purposes only. Mr. Khameni, in one of his tweets, seemed to conditionally endorse negotiations with America to remove Western sanctions. “You may want to make agreements on some nuclear issues,” he wrote. “That’s not a problem, but be careful not to manipulate the infrastructures and not to harm them.”Such “veiled references” to diplomacy are designed to “make sure that Iran remains on the path to a nuclear weapon,” Mr. Ben Taleblu says, adding that since much of the oil embargo has already been lifted, and as frozen funds are being released, Mr. Khamanei sees no benefit in compromise, even as he “hasn’t overruled diplomacy as a tool.”Meanwhile despite its calibrated denials the White House seems eager for a deal with Iran.“When asking U.S. officials about diplomacy with Iran, don’t use the terms ‘JCPOA,’ ‘deal,’ ‘interim deal,’ ‘agreement,’ and ‘sanctions relief,’” the policy director at United Against Nuclear Iran, Jason Brodsky, tweeted Sunday, saying that by doing so reporters “give an excuse for officials to deny.” Instead, he proposes, “ask about diplomatic understandings, arrangements, and unfreezing of assets.”As assets are already being unfrozen, understandings and arrangements increasingly look like they are around the corner.

Israel, Amid Reports of an Imminent American Pact With Iran, Issues a Stern Warning About the Dangers of a Deal

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