Why They Hate the Deal with Iran (original) (raw)

The Non-Nuclear Challenges of the Nuclear Agreement with Iran

In addition to its direct implications for the nuclear realm, the agreement on Iran’s nuclear program creates a host of other challenges for Israel. These challenges concern primarily the Palestinian and Syrian arenas, the delegitimization arena, and Israel’s special relationship with the United States, including its standing vis-à-vis the administration and the battle for US public opinion. • The US drive to sign an agreement with Iran reflects a strategic choice based on the premise that Iran is part of the solution to the problems in the Middle East, and not part of the problem. Iran appears to be regarded by the US administration as a stabilizing force and a responsible actor that can be relied upon in the struggle against fundamentalist Islam in general and the Islamic State in particular. On a practical level, this view bespeaks US acceptance of Iran’s hegemonic aspirations and effort to expand its influence in the region.

Israel, the United States, and the Military Option against Iran

Strategic Assessment - INSS , 2014

For more than a decade, Israel and the United States have been engaged in an intensive strategic dialogue over the nature and scope of Iran’s nuclear activity, the implications of the nuclear program, and the ways to handle the issue. Senior spokespeople of both countries have often stressed that although there is not total agreement on all aspects of the issue under discussion, the dialogue takes place in a very open atmosphere based on the understanding that the two nations espouse a common objective: keeping Iran from becoming a military nuclear power. In this context, both are willing to share information, including highly classfied material.

Iran Nuclear Deal and Israel: Unravelling a "Historic Mistake"

Israel's angry and querulous reaction to the agreement governing Iran's nuclear research and development activities shows how far adrift it is of world opinion. Sober analysis reveals that the agreement imposes several irksome restrictions on Iran, far beyond those it has willingly embraced by its membership of the nuclear non-proliferation regime. Israel's demand obviously motivated by the widening chaos in its neighbourhood, may have been little less than the continuation of a permanent state of war against Iran.

The World Awaits: Israel's Potential Strike on Iran and Its Global Implications

Harvard Data, 2024

, the world stands on edge, grappling with the precarious balance between Israel and Iran. The notion that Israel might launch a large-scale military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities is no longer mere speculation; it is a looming reality. The potential for this confrontation stems from both nations' long-standing animosities, exacerbated by recent provocations and escalations that have brought the Middle East to the brink of an international crisis. Israel's potential strike on Iran carries profound implications, not just for the region but for global stability. Background: A Conflict on the Edge At the heart of the current crisis is Iran's persistent pursuit of nuclear capabilities, an endeavor Israel has consistently regarded as an existential threat. Since the early 2000s, Israel has warned that a nuclear-armed Iran could undermine its security and destabilize the broader Middle East. Tehran, meanwhile, has maintained that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, a claim met with widespread skepticism, especially among Western powers and Israel.

Iran's Nuclear Program and the Israeli-Iranian Rivalry in the Post Revolutionary Era

The 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran led to a set of major shifts in the Middle East and an anti-Israeli stance became a central approach of the revolutionaries. Up to 1979, however, Tel Aviv had a close relationship with Tehran whose enmity with its Arab neighbours was anchored in a historical struggle for regional supremacy. Israel has remained an enemy of Islam and the Muslims for the revolutionary leaders and as Iran’s power grew Israel’s anxiety increased accordingly. A new division of power in the region and Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons led to a direct rivalry between Iran and Israel and consequently many Israelis have come to regard Iran and its nuclear program as an existential threat to Israel that has to be halted. This article explores the roots of enmity between these two countries, scrutinizes the threats of a nuclear armed Iran for Israel and attempts to determine what kind of measures might work to convince Iran to renounce its nuclear program. The article has four sections with the first section covering the history of the relations and the origins of hostility between Iran and Israel. The second section provides a brief overview of how the division of regional power led to direct rivalry between Tehran and Tel Aviv. The third section details Iran’s nuclear program and examines its threats to Israel and the last section covers the current sanctions debate over what type of measures might work to compel Iran to renounce its nuclear weapons.

Israeli and Iranian Use of the "War on Terror" to Articulate and Achieve Foreign Policy Goals

This paper (presented to the Center for Iranian Research and Analysis Conference in Orlando, FL in April, 2004) examines the ways in which Israeli and Iranian political leaders rhetorically appropriated the U.S. “war on terror” in support of their own foreign policy goals after the September 11th attacks. It observes some interesting and rather unique features of Israeli and Iranian public diplomacy that have not, to the author's knowledge, been closely analyzed from a comparative perspective. Israel’s rhetorical campaign against Iran since September 11, 2001, has had four objectives. All had been foreign policy priorities for at least a decade. What was new was the opportunity to legitimize and achieve them as a concomitant of the U.S. “war against terror” declared by President George W. Bush. They include 1) upgrading and formalizing Israel’s strategic and security links with the U.S.; 2) preventing the normalization, or even moderate improvement, in relations between the U.S. and Iran; 2) blaming Iranian interference and support for terrorism for Israel’s failure to achieve a peace agreement with the Palestinians and 4) preserving Israel’s nuclear monopoly in the Middle East by convincing the U.S. to either destroy Iran’s nuclear capability and potential or to acquiesce to Israel’s doing so in a preemptive strike similar to the attack on the Osiraq nuclear reactor in Iraq in June 1981. From the Iranian perspective, the “war on terror” and Bush’s uncompromising assertion that “you are either for us or against us” posed both dangers and opportunities. The greatest danger was that Iran might become the direct target of a U.S. strike against “Islamic fundamentalism.” But the “the war on terror” also seemed to present, at its outset, the possibility that the U.S. might modify its position sufficiently so as to allow for Iran’s inclusion in a coalition of “anti-terrorist” Muslim states. Within a week of the 9/11 attacks, Iran had articulated four demands which would influence its participation in such a coalition: 1) the insistence that military action in the “war against terrorism” be conducted under the auspices of the United Nations rather than of the United States; 2) a definition of “terrorism” that would encompass Israeli actions against Palestinians and Lebanon; 3) a crackdown by the U.S. and Europe on the activities of the Mojahedin-e Khalq; and 4) the assurance that the regime replacing the Taliban in Afghanistan would not be hostile to Iran. (This paper is being made available to academia.edu more than a decade after its presentation at the CIRA Conference because the arguments presented have retained their salience and are very much part of the debate on all sides about a nuclear agreement between the P5+1 and Iran. Its detailed documentation from Israeli and Iranian media sources provide a useful timeline leading up to the current debate.)