Israel is already plotting how to derail one of Joe Biden\u2019s signature foreign-policy promises.<\/p>\n
The high-profile campaign that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu waged against the Obama administration\u2019s nuclear deal with Iran failed to block the 2015 agreement. Officials are now weighing whether that sort of public crusade or behind-the-scenes engagement will be the most effective strategy with Biden, a senior Israeli official said, emphasizing that no decision has been made.<\/p>\n
Israel will start by sending a stream of envoys on visits to Washington, the official said, requesting anonymity to discuss private deliberations. It\u2019s stated publicly that it doesn\u2019t want the U.S. to abandon sanctions on the Islamic Republic without a new deal, and that a tougher stance should be taken toward its nuclear project, ballistic missile program and regional proxy forces.<\/p>\n
That strategy runs against the Biden team\u2019s willingness to re-enter the deal, then negotiate an expansion of its terms. It\u2019s conditioned on Iran\u2019s returning to compliance with the accord, whose limits it breached after President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of the agreement in 2018.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt seems to me that we have to learn some lessons, first of all not to give up the sanctions five minutes before we start the negotiations,\u201d Zohar Palti, head of the political-military bureau in Israel\u2019s Defense Ministry, said at a conference last month.<\/p>\n
Iran says it\u2019ll welcome the U.S. back to the accord but won\u2019t renegotiate. It\u2019s also demanded $70 billion in compensation for lost oil revenue as a result of U.S. sanctions.<\/p>\n
Israel also has a higher-risk card up its sleeve: the potential to upend diplomatic efforts through covert operations against Iran. Tehran blames Israel for the assassination of a top Iranian nuclear scientist in November, and its foreign minister this month accused Netanyahu\u2019s government of trying to goad the U.S. into war in an attempt to derail Biden\u2019s efforts to revive the deal.<\/p>\n
Iran Points Finger at Israel as It Warns Trump Against War (3)<\/p>\n
Netanyahu has been open about his intention to thwart renewed U.S. participation. In a rare public split, he rebuked his envoy to Germany for supporting Berlin\u2019s push to expand the deal.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere should be no return to the Iran nuclear agreement of 2015 — a deal which is flawed to its foundations,\u201d Netanyahu said.<\/p>\n
Facing another round of national elections in March, Netanyahu is campaigning on his foreign policy and security record and highlighting his staunch opposition to the Iran accord, a consensus position in Israel that likely will hold no matter who wins the vote. That included a controversial address to the U.S. Congress in 2015, where Netanyahu tried to persuade lawmakers to oppose Obama\u2019s Iran policies. The speech was made without notifying the White House, a breach of diplomatic protocol viewed as an insult to the then-president.<\/p>\n
Biden, who was vice president at the time, will seek a constructive relationship with Netanyahu and try to avoid public disagreements, according to a former senior U.S. official in close contact with the Biden team. But general policy isn\u2019t up for debate, the person said.<\/p>\n
Immediate changes to Iran policy under the new U.S. administration could include loosening access to humanitarian aid and making its trade mechanism with Europe work better, the former official added, asking not to be named because he wasn\u2019t authorized to speak for the president-elect.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere won\u2019t be a honeymoon between Biden and Netanyahu, but there doesn\u2019t need to be the kind of soap opera that characterized the relationship under Obama,\u201d said Aaron David Miller, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former Mideast official at the State Department.<\/p>\n