The revival of a nuclear deal with Iran will most likely hamper the future freedom of action by Israel and the United States to act against Iranian nuclear infrastructure, a former senior Israeli intelligence officer has warned.
Brig. Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser, an ex-Israel Defense Forces Intelligence Research Division head and a former director-general of the Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs, told JNS that while there are “advantages and disadvantages” to the two main scenarios of a deal and no deal, “it is clear to me that the current reality is much better than the reality in which a deal would be signed.”
Kuperwasser, today the director of the Project on Regional Middle East Developments at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, said the primary reason for this is that while Israel and the United States currently have freedom of action to derail the Iranian nuclear project and paralyze its infrastructure, that freedom would vanish after the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)—originally signed in 2015 and exited in 2018 by the Trump administration—is revived.
“Now, there is freedom to act for those who want to move against the Iranian nuclear program and to prevent them from achieving an ability to build nuclear weapons. This freedom exists for both Israel and the United States,” said Kuperwasser.
“Certainly, every military maneuver against Iran would have a price; there are no free meals. But there is nothing to prevent such action, which would be aimed at disrupting the creation of a strategic threat to the world and to Israel’s security,” he stated.
On the other hand, once the JCPOA is revived, “not even the U.S. will be able to prevent Iran from having the capability to produce a big arsenal of nuclear weapons” since by the time the sunset clauses expire in eight years, Iran will be too far advanced in its nuclear program to stop it militarily, argued Kuperwasser.
At this time, Iran is struggling to enrich sufficient quantities of uranium to build a small quantity of uranium-fueled atomic bombs and has not yet built nuclear explosive devices, he said. But in eight years, Iran will reach the position of being able to build a large number of nuclear bombs and will be too far along in its program to stop with military force.
“Hence, while a reality with a signed deal will remove the immediacy of the threat of Iran building a nuclear weapon and will delay that threat by a number of years, when the sunset clauses expire, Iran will have the legitimacy to produce an enormous quantity of 90% military-grade-level enriched uranium,” said Kuperwasser. “It will not stop developing missiles [the delivery systems] at any stage, and it will be able to quickly develop nuclear weapons after that.”
Kuperwasser added that the delay that a new deal would bring would be utilized not only by Israel, which is building up its own military capabilities to be able to strike Iran in the future, but by Iran and its regional axis.
“Who will exploit this time better? That is a valid question. I believe the Iranians will utilize the time in the most effective manner. They can build up their air-defense systems and their capacity to attack Israel with lethal firepower. They will have access to so many funds that this readiness will be considerably easier for them to build up,” assessed Kuperwasser. This, in turn, will serve to boost Iran’s regional hegemonic objectives, which it pursues by supporting, arming and funding a network of radical terror armies—from Hezbollah in Lebanon to militias in Syria and Iraq, the Houthis in Yemen, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
“This is ultimately why Iran wants nuclear weapons—to become a regional power,” said Kuperwasser.
“I believe the situation under a signed deal now would be worse than in 2015,” he added, since, according to Iranian media reports, the sanctions snapback measure, which could be activated by any party to the 2015 agreement, is now absent.
Iranian military missiles, long-range, short-range and satellite missiles on display at a military museum in Tehran. Credit: saeediex/Shutterstock.