Israel may not engage with Biden over Iran nuclear issue

Israel’s Ambassador to the United States has said that Israel might not engage with President Joe Biden’s strategy regarding the nuclear issue with Iran, Reuters reported on Tuesday. At the same time, Gilad Erdan urged tougher sanctions and a “credible military threat” against Iran in order to deter its nuclear programme.

Biden’s administration has made the return to the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran a priority alongside restoring sanctions but has said that this depends on the Iranians recommitting to their own obligations.

“We will not be able to be part of such a process if the new administration returns to that deal,” Reuters reported Erdan telling Israel’s Army Radio. The “deal” in question is the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, from which Donald Trump withdrew the US in 2018.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s aides have privately questioned whether engaging with their US counterparts might backfire for Israel, by falsely signalling its consent to any new deal that it still opposes.

Israel, which was not part of the 2015 deal, has powerful advocates within the US Congress. However, Netanyahu’s threats to take unilateral military action against Iran if he deems diplomacy to have reached a dead-end also figure into big-power planning said Reuters.

READ: Israel PM to discuss possible US return to Iran nuclear deal

“We think that if the United States returns to the same accord that it already withdrew from, all its leverage will be lost,” explained Erdan. “It would appear that only crippling sanctions — keeping the current sanctions and even adding new sanctions — combined with a credible military threat — that Iran fears — might bring Iran to real negotiations with Western countries that might ultimately produce a deal truly capable of preventing it breaking ahead [to develop nuclear weapons].”

Reuters said that the Biden administration has said it wants to strengthen constraints on Iran, which denies that its nuclear programme is for anything other than peaceful purposes.