Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is publicly challenging President Obama’s Iran diplomacy, with public statements that portray it as prevarication in the face of a grave and gathering danger. But it should come as no surprise that Israel’s leaders are agitated and openly skeptical over the U.S. entering a new process of diplomatic engagement on Iran’s nuclear program. That's because even the best-case diplomatic outcome would likely be a compromise that falls short of Israel’s demands, but might push the issue off the international community’s crisis agenda.
The guiding principles established in Istanbul for the ongoing talks between Iran and the P5+1 group, are compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and a sustained process of step-by-step concrete actions undertaken on a basis of reciprocity. That framework, alone, alarms Israel, which is not a signatory to the NPT and which insists that Iran cannot be allowed to maintain any uranium enrichment capability. Although the NPT obliges Iran to account for all of its nuclear work to the satisfaction of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) — which Iran has yet to do — it also guarantees Iran’s right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes. A diplomatic solution based on the NPT, therefore, would strengthen safeguards against Iran using its nuclear capability to build weapons, but would not dismantle and remove Iran’s enrichment capability, as Israel — as well as France, and more hawkish elements in Washington — have demanded. The initial focus of the current diplomatic process is not on forcing immediate Iranian compliance with U.N. Security Council demands that it suspend all uranium enrichment. Instead, negotiators seek “confidence-building” measures in the area of Iran's enrichment uranium to 20% purity. That dimension of Tehran’s program, ostensibly undertaken to meet the needs of a medical research reactor, creates nuclear material far closer (in required reprocessing time) to weapons-grade than the 3.5% low-enriched uranium Iran has been producing as reactor fuel. Western powers hope to persuade Tehran to halting that level of enrichment and ship out its existing stockpile of 20% material for conversion into fuel plates.
The Iranians have indicated that they may be willing to halt enrichment to 20%, claiming their medical needs have been fulfilled, but are demanding -- under the principle of reciprocity -- relief from sanctions as the price of cooperation. In fact, Tehran is urging the West to lift sanctions to accelerate a deal the West desires. But Western powers expect Iran to make the first move. “I believe in action for action,” said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. “But I think in this case, the burden of action falls on the Iranians to demonstrate their seriousness ... and we’ll respond accordingly.” Still, the Iranians will only take that concrete step if they know what response such a move would bring from the West. Defining and sequencing the reciprocal steps will likely be the focus of the ongoing preparatory talks ahead of the Baghdad meeting on May 23, and perhaps beyond that, even.
Making "concessions" to Iran on sanctions is difficult for President Obama in an election season, and it's precisely that vulnerability that Netanyahu is seeking to exploit in order to hold the US to a hard line. The US is unlikely to get all of what it wants from Iran in a diplomatic process, and the resulting compromises can easily be painted as feckless by Obama's opponents.
A confidence-building deal that ended 20% enrichment in Iran would not resolve the nuclear standoff, but it would stop the “ticking clock” of escalation and allow time and space for a more sustained process of negotiating a diplomatic solution. Israeli leaders fear that while such a deal might reverse some alarming recent steps by Iran (expanding 20% enrichment), it would likely reinforce previous status quo of low-level enrichment that Israel had deemed unacceptable, while taking the Iran issue off the front burner.
Indeed, the Israelis may fear Iran is following the strategy of their own Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, whose 2005 withdrawal from Gaza was designed to ease international pressure to do a deal with the Palestinians, freeze the peace process and win US consent for Israel consolidating its grip on the West Bank. By the same logic, Iran may agree to end 20% enrichment in order to consolidate Western acceptance of their right to the lower level of enrichment in line with NPT guidelines, while easing sanctions and taking the issue off the agenda of urgent global security priorities. And the prospect of a solution that presents Israel with what it would deem a half-loaf that will spur it to continue to challenging the diplomatic process.
