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Israel Reacts with Alarm at What Its Leadership Sees as a Bad Deal
(Brookings Institution) Natan B. Sachs - The common view from Jerusalem reflects a combination of short-term relief over the French resolve, and a very deep concern over the new and potentially dramatic rift with the U.S. administration. The Israelis claim that U.S. officials had previously briefed them on an outline of a deal which they, the Israelis, didn't like, but which they could have lived with. However, the Israelis claim that the terms that emerged in Geneva were far worse than previously outlined, and the Israeli surprise over the extent of the sanctions relief is genuine. The Israelis, like the French, appear very concerned about the provisions of the interim deal that: (a) permitted Tehran to continue some uranium enrichment; (b) allowed Iran to continue building the heavy-water reactor in Arak; and (c) provided Tehran with incentives that the Israelis see as the beginning of the dismantling of the sanctions regime. Israel's concern is that the proposed sanctions relief will not, in practice, be reversible, while the Iranian commitments could be easily reversed. Discussions in Israel suggest the Americans have been over-eager to reach a deal and had allowed the terms to erode significantly, rather than Iran feeling pressured to close a diplomatic deal in light of the biting sanctions. This plays into a common narrative in the region of a U.S. administration eager to find any diplomatic way out of a confrontation. The writer is a fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings.