Deep Disquiet: Israel and the Iran Nuclear Deal

Iran and Israel: 35 Years of Hostility and Counting

Iran’s Islamic revolution led to a break in diplomatic relations between the Jewish State and Tehran. Since then, both the countries have found themselves on the opposite end of the regional divide, with Israel accusing Iran of actively following the policies that seek to undermine its security (Kumarswamy, 2012). The aftermath of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 to drive out the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), for instance, led to the creation of the Hezbollah. Israel accuses the predominantly Shiite organization of being a proxy to the Iranian government and of having obtained diplomatic and material support to further its destabilizing activities directed against it.

The Israel internal security agency (ISA/Shin Bet) charges that organizations like the Hezbollah are “front-line operational arm of Iran against Israel” (Israeli Security Agency, 2013). Hezbollah not only worked against Israel’s interests in Lebanon till its withdrawal in 2000 and during the 2006 war but it also carried out daring attacks against US and Israeli interests overseas. These include the 1983 bombings in Beirut and against the Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires in 1994.

Israel further accuses Iran of supporting and supplying the Hamas (the largely Sunni Islamic Resistance Movement operating out of the Gaza Strip) and other Palestinian armed groups such as the Islamic Jihad to wage relentless rocket attacks against its civilian populations. In the aftermath of bomb attacks against an Israeli Embassy vehicle in February 2012 in New Delhi and related incidents in Bangkok and Bulgaria, Prime Minister Netanyahu, in a letter to the United Nations (UN) Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, accused Iran of “an international terrorist campaign in 24 countries on five continents” directed against Israeli and/or Jewish interests (Ministry of Foreign Affairs [MFA], 2012a).

Israel’s main concern, therefore, has been that a nuclear weapon capable Iran would be more emboldened to carry out its destabilizing activities with greater impunity. Netanyahu, while meeting with President Barack Obama on May 18, 2009, insisted that “if Iran was to acquire nuclear weapons, it could give a nuclear umbrella to terrorists, or worse, it could actually give terrorist’s nuclear weapons. And that would put us all in great peril” (Prime Minister’s Office [PMO], 2009). Israeli officials were worried about the domino effect of Iran’s possible nuclearization on the already unstable region possessing serious security deficits.

Further, incendiary statements directed against it by the Iranian clerical, political, and military leadership have fed into its sense of disquiet. The threats by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to “wipe” Israel off the map are oft cited, though there has been some debate as to the exact interpretation of his statements (Kessler, 2011). As against the above however, the “death to Israel” chants in the aftermath of Friday prayers led by Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei and attended by Iranian presidents from Ahmadinejad to Hassan Rouhani are a reality that Israel refers to in its case against the clerical regime.

P5+1 Process and Israel’s Skepticism

The dominant diplomatic strategy pursued to tackle the Iranian nuclear concerns was the P5+1 talks. The Iranian nuclear file was referred to the UNSC for the first time in February 2006 by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) due to “the absence of confidence that Iran’s nuclear program is exclusively for peaceful purposes resulting from the history of concealment of Iran’s nuclear activities …” (International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA], 2006). The P5+1 process began from June 2006, with Germany, which was involved in finding a solution since 2003 as part of the European Union-3 (EU-3) along with the United Kingdom and France, carrying on its role in addition to the permanent members of the UNSC.

The P5+1 process was an essential part of the “dual-track” approach followed by the US and the EU which involved “applying pressure in pursuit of a constructive engagement and a negotiated solution” (US Department of State, 2011). Pressure in the form of increasingly punitive UNSC as well as US and EU sanctions was applied when Iran did not follow through on the requirements of the IAEA and the UNSC resolutions. This, however, did not elicit a change in Iranian behavior for a long time (until at least November 2013). The Iran–P5+1 engagement meanwhile was long drawn-out, far from constructive, and witnessed an uneven trajectory. This engagement process was in contrast to the positions articulated by Israeli officials like the then Defence Minister Ehud Barak, who in his meeting with US Defence Secretary Robert Gates on July 27, 2009 insisted that any engagement with Iran over its nuclear program should be “short in time, objective, [and] well defined” (MFA, 2009).

Further, as greater pressure was applied on Iran, its intransigence grew apace. This was true as regards Iran’s behavior at least prior to 2012, when the sanctions began to be ramped up significantly by the US and EU targeting Iran’s primary source of revenues, its oil exports. Iran, for instance, quit adhering to the IAEA Additional Protocol (AP) in February 2006, which it was voluntarily following from December 2003, in the immediate aftermath of its referral to the UNSC. Iran also announced that it would not be bound by the revised requirements of its subsidiary arrangement in March 2007, in the immediate aftermath of the UNSC sanctions Resolution 1747. The revision required it to inform the IAEA as soon as a decision to construct a nuclear facility is taken, as against the previous provisions which only required it to inform the agency 6 months prior to the introduction of nuclear material in any new facility.

All the UNSC sanctions resolutions meanwhile were adopted under Article 41, Chapter VII of the UN charter making it mandatory on member states to implement them. Among others, these resolutions primarily related to asset freezes of sanctioned individuals and entities as well as prohibited the transfer of dual-use/military/nuclear-related items or their export, prohibited the development of nuclear-capable ballistic missiles, prohibited investments by Iran in nuclear-related activities abroad including uranium mining and called for restraint on transactions with sanctioned Iranian banks. These sanctions were primarily enacted to force Iran to halt its uranium enrichment activities and abide by the resolutions of the IAEA, including implementing measures like IAEA AP. Iran, however, continued to disregard such requirements, adding to regional and Israel’s security angst.

Israeli political leaders as well as members of the US Congress viewed these UNSC sanction measures as inadequate in bringing about a change in Iranian behavior. Israeli concerns over the Iranian nuclear program meanwhile peaked in the light of its continuing enrichment activities as well as due to reports by the IAEA indicating possible military dimensions (PMD) associated with its nuclear program. These PMD concerns were most pertinently listed in the November 2011 report of the IAEA Director General to the Board of Governors (International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA], 2011). At the UNGA in September 2012, Netanyahu stated,

For nearly a decade, the international community has tried to stop the Iranian nuclear program with diplomacy. That hasn’t worked. Iran uses diplomatic negotiations as a means to buy time to advance its nuclear program. (MFA, 2012b)

Iran’s negotiations with its interlocutors—the engagement track of the “dual-track” strategy—meanwhile witnessed an uneven trajectory. Talks were in suspended animation from January 2011 to April 2012. They were also hostage to the nature of the contentious relationship that Iran shared with its key interlocutors like the US and the UK. The negotiations though assumed a positive light on the back of the election of President Hassan Rouhani in August 2013. He campaigned on the promise of working to lift the increasingly tough restrictive sanction measures which had begun to hurt the Iranian economy.

Iran oil revenues for instance, which stood at $100 billion in 2011 reduced to $35 billion in 2013. The oil production fell from 4 million barrels per day (mbpd) at the end of 2011 to 2.4 mbpd in November 2013, when the JPOA was negotiated. Iran’s trade surplus fell from $70 billion in 2011 to $44 billion in 2012 and $38 billion in 2013 (Olster, 2013). Further, Rouhani insisted that his administration of “prudence and hope” would strive to follow a “moderate” policy in pursuit of national objectives (Press TV, 2013). This was in contrast to the confrontationist approach-cum-rhetoric of the Ahmadinejad government which vitiated rather than helped cool down tensions. Direct US–Iran talks facilitated by Oman also helped the process of achieving a solution to the intractable issue.

Even after Rouhani’s ascendance, Israel continued to insist that it would be naïve to expect any change in Iranian policy given that the Supreme Leader Khamenei was the ultimate authority on the nuclear file. Further, Netanyahu charged that Rouhani in his previous role as Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator deliberately misled the West about Iran’s nuclear intentions (PMO, 2013). In his speech in front of the members of the US Congress in March 2015, Netanyahu rubbished claims about the Rouhani government’s moderation by charging that it continues to “hang gays, persecutes Christians, jails journalists and executes even more prisoners than before.” Further, he charged that the assumption about the presumed moderation in Iran’s policies under Rouhani does not square with incidents like Foreign Minister Javad Zarif’s paying “homage” at the grave of Imad Mughniyeh, “the terrorist mastermind who spilled more American blood than any other terrorist besides Osama bin Laden” (PMO, 2015). Netanyahu was referring to Zarif’s visit to the grave of Mughniyeh, who was killed allegedly in a car bomb blast in a joint US/Israeli operation in February 2008, while visiting Beirut in January 2014.

Israel’s Preferred Policy Option

Netanyahu’s speech at the UNGA in September 2012 starkly captured Israel’s concerns regarding the continued growth in Iranian capabilities, despite the diplomatic process. Insisting that a nuclear-armed Iran was akin to a nuclear-armed al-Qaeda, Netanyahu asserted that the “world’s most dangerous terrorist regime or the world’s most dangerous terrorist organization” are “both fired by the same hatred … driven by the same lust for violence” (MFA, 2012b). He called for “clear red lines” to be drawn as regards Iran’s nuclear enrichment program as these facilities “are the only nuclear installations that we can definitely see and credibly target” (ibid.). The Israeli prime minister dismissed as “a dangerous assumption” the view that the Iranian regime can be deterred like the erstwhile Soviet Union, given that (ibid.).

Israeli Defense Minister Barak in July 2012 insisted on “a swift and definite stop to the Iranian nuclear project” failing which a future course of action if Iranian capabilities mature would be “vastly more complicated, dangerous and exacting in human lives and resources” (NTI, 2012). After retiring from the active politics, in the course of an interview to an Israeli television channel aired in August 2015 (after it passed muster with military censors), Barak revealed that Israel had considered attacking Iran at least three times from 2009 to 2012 but did not do so either because the Israel Defence Force (IDF) did not have the operational capability or due to differences over the proposed course of action among senior members of the Netanyahu cabinet (Ravid, 2015).

Even before concerns about the Iranian nuclear program came into international limelight in the aftermath of the revelations about the Natanz enrichment plant by an Iranian opposition group in August 2002, Israel has been very wary of the pursuit of nuclear capabilities by its regional rivals. Israel took extraordinary steps, for instance, to set back Iraqi capabilities when it bombed the Osirak nuclear reactor in June 1981. Israel also ostensibly carried out air strikes against a Syrian facility in September 2007, which was in all probability a nuclear reactor built with the help of the North Koreans.

Iran, on its part, has criticized Israel’s activism over what it continued to insist were irrelevant concerns regarding its nuclear program while not acknowledging its own nuclear status. Speaking at the UNGA in September 2013, for instance, President Rouhani urged Israel to join the nuclear nonproliferation treaty (NPT) “without any further delay” and added that efforts to establish a nuclear-weapon free zone in the Middle East have “regrettably failed” (AlAlam, 2013). While Israel is widely held to be the region’s sole nuclear weapons power, it has not acknowledged this capability, nor has it overtly tested a nuclear weapon. ¹ Israel has neither made any statements publicly incorporating nuclear weapon into its overall military strategy. The above elements among others have been termed as a policy of “nuclear opacity” by analysts (Cohen & Frankel, 1991).

Israeli political leaders on their part, dating back to Deputy Defense Minister Shimon Peres in 1963, have emphasized that Israel would not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons into the region (Foreign Relations of the United States, 2000). Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1975 added that Israel could not afford to be the second country either to introduce nuclear weapons into the region (cited in Barnaby, 1996, p. 105). Following the raid on Osirak, Prime Minister Menachem Begin effectively added another tenet to the policy by forcefully conveying that Israel would prevent any attempt by its enemies to acquire nuclear weapons (Jones et al., 1998, p. 206). While some Israeli analysts have suggested that Israeli nuclear ambiguity was “an illusion” and that Israel should formally reveal its nuclear status, there has been no change as yet regarding this policy (Oren, 2014).

In the face of the Iran threat however, Israeli leaders like Prime Minister Ehud Olmert have conveyed Israeli nuclear status, albeit “inadvertently.” Olmert, for instance, in an interview with a German television channel in December 2006 admitted to the Israeli nuclear capability and stated

Iran, openly, explicitly and publicly threatens to wipe Israel off the map. Can you say that this is the same level, when they are aspiring to have nuclear weapons, as America, France, Israel, Russia? (Spiegel International, 2006)

This was a few days after the then incoming US Defense Secretary Robert Gates told the US Senate during the course of his confirmation hearings that Iran was “surrounded by powers with nuclear weapons: Pakistan to their east, the Russians to the north, the Israelis to the west and us in the Persian Gulf” (The Washington Post, 2006).

As against Israel’s advocacy for a more muscular approach privileging the threat to carry out a military option (as it did against Iraq and ostensibly against Syria), the US officials were less than enthusiastic. US military chief General Martin Dempsey affirmed in an interview to Cable News Network (CNN) in February 2012 that talk of a military strike on Iran was “pre-mature” (CNN, 2012). The Director of National Intelligence (DNI), James Clapper, in testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on January 31, 2012 stated that Iran’s nuclear decision-making was “guided by a cost-benefit approach, which offers the international community opportunities to influence Tehran” (Clapper, 2012, p. 6).

DNI Clapper in subsequent years has also insisted that while Iran has the “scientific, technical and industrial capacity to eventually produce nuclear weapons,” whether it would do so was contingent on a “political” decision (Clapper, 2014, p. 5). By focusing on Iran’s political calculus, US officials thus privileged options such as stronger sanctions and military readiness of the US and its allies that could potentially impinge on such an Iranian decision.

The Obama administration, therefore, was less than enthusiastic about overtly endorsing the military option. President Obama, most pertinently, in his address before the premier Israel advocacy group American–Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in March 2012 criticized “too much loose talk of war” (Obama, 2012). The administration nevertheless took steps to buttress its own military capabilities (at its Fifth Fleet stationed at Bahrain) as well as that of regional allies, such as Israel and the Gulf Cooperation Countries (GCC), in order to better equip them to face any eventuality. The October 2012 “Austere Challenge” exercise, for instance, was the largest ever missile defense exercise between the US and Israel, as indeed the provision of advanced missile defense batteries and radars in places like Qatar.

The political caution vis-à-vis Israel’s advocacy of a muscular approach coupled with efforts to be militarily ready can be termed to constitute the “twin prongs” of Obama’s military strategy vis-à-vis Iran. There was also a stream of high-level US officials in Israel to dissuade the latter from undertaking any destabilizing military strike against Iran on its own accord. Such a strike even if undertaken with Israel’s limited capabilities (lack of aerial refuelers, long distances involved, and flying over enemy territory were among other deficiencies flagged by analysts) was viewed as not being very effective in significantly setting back the Iranian capabilities.

Israel’s preference for a more muscular military approach, urging that Iran’s enrichment infrastructure be threatened militarily to elicit a change in Iranian behavior as Netanyahu did at the UNGA in September 2012, was also at odds with the positions of key regional countries like India. The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) had in July 2008 (when media reports of such a possible strike were circulating) termed the exercise of such an option by either the US and/or Israel as “unacceptable international behavior.” The spokesperson explicitly stated that “a military strike on Iran would have disastrous consequences for the entire region, affecting the lives and livelihood of five million Indians resident in the Gulf, and the world economy” (Ministry of External Affairs [MEA], 2008).

JPOA, Lausanne Framework, and JCPOA: Israel’s Take

When the JPOA was agreed upon on November 24, 2013 by Iran and its interlocutors, Prime Minister Netanyahu termed it a “historic mistake,” as against Obama terming it a “historic achievement” (MFA, 2013). The Israeli leader criticized the JPOA, among other things, for allowing uranium enrichment in Iran while ignoring the UNSC decisions and for promising to lift sanctions in return for insignificant Iranian concessions. It is pertinent to note, however, that the UNSC resolutions required Iran to stop its ongoing enrichment actiities till the “exclusively peaceful nature” of the Iranian nuclear program was ascertained. The JPOA affirmed that a “comprehensive solution” would “involve a mutually-defined enrichment program with mutually agreed parameters consistent with practical needs, with agreed limits on scope and level of enrichment activities” (EEAS, 2013).

Despite Netanyahu’s criticism, however, the JPOA was the first agreement since November 2004 (with EU-3 countries which was not implemented) that contained Iran’s acceptance of certain short-term limitations on its nuclear program. These included diluting its stock of enriched uranium (which was among the main points of concern highlighted by Netanyahu at the UNGA in September 2012), agreeing not to enrich uranium above 5 percent, not to make any further additions to the Arak reactor, increased the transparency measures including “managed access” to uranium mines and mills, among others (Balachandran & Rajiv, 2013). Israeli officials like the Minister of Intelligence Yuval Steinitz, however, maintained that the goal of the negotiations was “to get rid of the Iranian nuclear threat, not verify or inspect it” (cited in Ignatius, 2015).

After 14 rounds of talks in the aftermath of the JPOA and 18 months of negotiations (which involved two extensions of the JPOA in July and November 2014), the Lausanne Framework was agreed upon on April 2, 2015. This contained the broad outline of the commitments that Iran would undertake as part of a comprehensive nuclear deal regarding its nuclear program to address the long-running international concerns, contingent on securing sanctions relief. These commitments included Iran agreeing not to enrich uranium beyond 3.67 percent for 15 years, operating only about 6,000 first generation IR-1 centrifuges (out of nearly 20,000) at one facility (Natanz), removal of vast majority of the remaining centrifuges, no re-processing, no heavy water plants for 15 years, among others (Rajiv & Balachandran, 2015).

Netanyahu charged that the “concessions” being offered to Iran at Lausanne were akin to “rewarding Iran’s aggression” and that it would “pave the way for Iran to arm itself with nuclear weapons” (MFA, 2015a). For Netanyahu, a

better deal would link the eventual lifting of the restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program to a change in Iran’s behavior. Iran must stop its aggression in the region, stop its terrorism throughout the world and stop its threats to annihilate Israel. That should be non-negotiable and that’s the deal that the world powers must insist upon. (ibid.)

Earlier on March 3, in his speech to the US Congress, Netanyahu listed the other drawbacks regarding the then ongoing negotiations, namely Iranian ballistic missiles were not a part of the deal; restrictions would expire at most in a decade; expressed apprehensions about a possible change in Iran’s regional outlook and activities, given that Iran would be allowed to use the advanced centrifuges in a decade; and for allowing Iran’s nuclear infrastructure “to remain largely intact” (PMO, 2015). Netanyahu told President Obama, who called him up 2 hours after the framework was announced that “a deal based on this framework would threaten the survival of Israel” (MFA, 2015b). ²

Israel also responded to the charge of its critics that its strident opposition to the nuclear negotiations would lead to a breakdown of negotiations and eventual war with Iran by insisting that the alternative to a “bad deal” was not war but a “better deal” that “will involve a significant dismantling of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and a demand for a cessation of Iranian aggression and terror across the region and the world” (MFA, 2015c). Netanyahu insisted that the negotiations had got the formula wrong by seeking to reward Iran with benefits before it changed its regional behavior rather than the other way around (MFA, 2015d).

Speaking at the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee on June 29, 2015, Netanyahu stated that the deal under negotiation would allow Iran to acquire an “unlimited [nuclear] arsenal within a decade …” (MFA, 2015e). Ahead of the final phase of the negotiations on the JCPOA, in his remarks at the weekly Cabinet meeting on July 12, Netanyahu cited Khamenei’s recent statements to the effect that Iran would continue to plan to fight the US regardless of any agreement and criticized the “parade of concessions” at Vienna (MFA, 2015f).

The JCPOA was eventually agreed upon on July 14, 2015. Iran agreed to limit its uranium stockpile to 300 kilograms enriched to 3.67 percent for 15 years, limitations on testing of advanced centrifuges, not to engage in research and development involving plutonium or uranium metals, daily access to Natanz enrichment plant (the sole uranium enrichment site with no activities to take place at Fordow) for 15 years, among others (Rajiv, 2015).

Netanyahu charged that “leading international powers” have “gambled that in ten years’ time, Iran’s terrorist regime will change while removing any incentive for it to do so. In fact, the deal gives Iran every incentive not to change” (MFA, 2015g). He further charged that the Iran’s deal repeats the mistake that the US and other major powers made with the 1994 North Korean deal, which was that “inspections and verifications would prevent a rogue regime from developing nuclear weapons” (ibid.). North Korea eventually conducted its first nuclear weapon test in October 2006, after quitting the NPT in January 2003. Netanyahu asserted that “Israel is not bound by this deal with Iran because Iran continues to seek our destruction” (ibid.).

The JCPOA stated that the IAEA would present its final assessment of the contentious PMD issues by December 2015. Iran and the IAEA had on the same day that the JCPOA was negotiated upon (July 14) simultaneously agreed on a “Road Map” to resolve the contentious issues which included a “separate arrangement regarding the issue of Parchin” (IAEA, 2015). The US officials were, however, quoted as stating that they did not know the specific details of this agreement. Israeli analysts and Senators like John McCain expressed concern given that the agreement dealt with resolving a critical issue pertaining to the PMD (Stoil, 2015). However, the US State Department spokesperson on July 22, 2015 reiterated that such “technical agreements are never shared outside the state in question in the IAEA, but we have been briefed on them …” (US Department of State, 2015).

The Deal and Its Aftermath

The IAEA presented its final assessment on Iran’s PMD activities on December 2, 2015 which indicated that while Iran did carry out PMD activities till at least 2003 under a structured plan, and that it did computer modeling of a nuclear explosive device between 2005 and 2009, the agency had “no credible indications of activities in Iran relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device after 2009” (IAEA, 2015). Netanyahu’s office asserted that the IAEA report supported its long-standing contention that Iran pursued nuclear weapon-related activities even after 2003 (MFA, 2015h).

Israel has continued to accuse Iran of supporting terror-related incidents directed against it after the JCPOA. It blamed the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad for a rocket attack near the Golan Heights on August 20, 2015 and charged that the attack “occurred before the ink on the JCPOA nuclear agreement has even dried …” (MFA, 2015i). On October 12, Netanyahu charged that Iran was expanding its activities in Syria and that “thousands” of Iranian soldiers were being deployed near Israel’s northern borders (MFA, 2015j).

As for Israeli domestic dynamics, opinion polls in the aftermath of the deal showed that a majority of Israelis believed that the JCPOA would not prevent Iran’s nuclearization (Maltz, 2015). Netanyahu’s handling of the US–Israel relationship as well as his reactions to the P5+1 negotiation though came under criticism. To be sure, retired security experts were critical of Netanyahu’s policy positions even prior to the JCPOA (Goldberg, 2015). The prime minister was criticized, for instance, for insisting on incorporating clauses ensuring Iran’s compliance on terrorism (non-existential issue) when the negotiations were about the “existential” nuclear issue (Halevy, 2015).

Former Mossad chief Meir Dagan was one of the earliest and most prominent critics of the Netanyahu government’s positions on the issue. In the aftermath of the Lausanne Framework, other analysts had termed Israel’s “crusade” against the deal a “resounding failure” (Rudoren, 2015). Netanyahu’s speech to the US Congress was criticized by groups like Commanders for Israel’s Security (CIS), which noted that it would weaken Israel’s bipartisan bond with the US (Azulay, 2015). In the aftermath of the JCPOA, the CIS urged Netanyahu to accept it as a “done deal,” renew the trust with the US as well as intelligence cooperation to help monitor the agreement and detect Iran’s subversive activities in the region. They also urged the government to make efforts to enlist “the support of moderate Arab states for the advancement of a political settlement between Israel and the Palestinians” (Haaretz, 2015).

American Jewish organizations, such as the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) gave similar advice urging the Israeli policy makers to “tamp down the rhetoric” given that Israel “needs US military and political support” (URJ, 2015). Against the backdrop of the massive effort launched by advocacy groups, such as AIPAC, Republican Jewish Coalition, and United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) to sway the Obama administration’s policy prior to the JCPOA, such views assume pertinence given that 35 percent of American Jews belong to Reform Judaism.

As far as US–Israel bilateral ties are concerned, some Israeli analysts have noted that differing threat perceptions, divergent regional assessments, deep trust deficit, and the Israeli perception that the US has not sufficiently addressed the consequences of a “nuclear threshold” Iran account for the differences on the Iran nuclear deal (Herzog, 2015). ³ Despite these differences and the stridency and the stridency of Netanyahu’s approach in conveying Israel’s positions the US–Israel strategic relationship has continued to be nurtured.

US officials, like the Secretary of State John Kerry, on September 2, 2015, while highlighting the positives of the deal, noted that the US had given over US$20 billion in foreign military financing (FMF) to Israel since Obama came to office in 2009. He further listed other aspects of critical US military support, including US$3 billion in the production and deployment of Iron Dome batteries and other missile defense programs, Israel would soon become the only nation to have the F-35 fighter aircraft, and President Obama authorizing a massive arms resupply package including air-to-air missiles and penetrating munitions. Kerry reiterated that the US would oppose Iran’s destabilizing policies “with every national security tool available” even while the US “respectfully disagrees” with Netanyahu over the benefits of the Iran agreement. Kerry pointedly responded to Israel’s criticism comparing the JCPOA to the North Korean agreement by noting that the latter agreement was all of four pages and dealt with only plutonium, the JCPOA was nearly 160 pages long with provisions to block all potential Iranian pathways to a bomb (Kerry, 2015).

Despite differences over the Iran nuclear issue, there has been a steady stream of high-level contacts between Israeli and American leaders. President Obama, while welcoming Netanyahu to the White House on November 9, 2015 pointed out that he has not met with any other foreign leader as frequently as he did with the Israeli Prime Minister. Obama visited Israel for the first time in March 2013. Though this was at the start of his second term, the US President had already met with Netanyahu nearly 10 times.

Both sides are currently negotiating the terms of the 10-year defense agreement (with the current one expiring in 2017) that would further enhance the American military cooperation with Israel. During the visit of Defence Minister Moshe Ya’alon to Washington in October 2015, US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter pointed out that Israel was an “equal defense partner” given that Israeli companies (Elbit providing a heads-up display) were involved in supplying critical parts for the F-35 (MFA, 2015k). Minister Ya’alon, responding to a question in joint remarks with Secretary Carter, while acknowledging that the “Iranian deal is given … now we have to look to the future” insisted that even if the deal was implemented, “within 15 years … we will again be dealing with a potential military-nuclear Iran. Rogue regimes [are] not going to change [their] ideology” (ibid.). Therefore, while it would continue to partner with the US to improve its QME vis-à-vis Iran and regional rivals, it seems that Israel’s Iran dilemma would play out to uncertain consequences.