With the recent death of the head of the IAEA, Netanyahu is finding renewed opportunity to bring the ‘atomic archives’ back to center stage and further sabotage the Iran nuclear deal. This is a grave strategic mistake. By Shemuel Meir The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the multilateral agreement that restricts Iran’s nuclear program and prevents it from developing nuclear weapons, has reached a critical juncture. In the midst of the crisis surrounding the future of the JCPOA, Yukiya Amano passed away. Amano, who was the head of the IAEA from 2009 until his death, played a major role in…

President Trump's new sanctions on Iran were widely praised by Netanyahu and the media. But they may not bring about the outcome so desired by the Israeli leader and his followers. By Shemuel Meir President Trump's recent declaration on the renewal of the oil and finance sanctions on Iran were greeted with great enthusiasm by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu thanked President Trump for the severe sanctions, which would impose a "huge stranglehold" on the Islamic Republic and could do away entirely with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear agreement led by President Obama. Netanyahu's announcement was filled with superlatives…

Intent on killing the Iran nuclear deal, Netanyahu and Trump have dispensed with logic and are relying on emotion, confusion, and fear to try to achieve their objective.  By Paul R. Pillar Benjamin Netanyahu’s display of a cartoon bomb before the United Nations General Assembly nearly six years ago received much ridicule but at least was grounded in some facts about uranium enrichment levels and how they relate to the ability to make a nuclear weapon. These days, Netanyahu doesn’t reprise that part of his General Assembly speech, and it’s not because of the ridicule. It is because the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action…

Netanyahu is repeating the claim that, following the nuclear deal, Iran will soon amass an arsenal of a hundred bombs. That couldn't be farther from the truth. By Shemuel Meir Speaking at the Jerusalem Post's Diplomatic Conference on December 6th, 2017, Prime Minister Netanyahu stated that, within a decade, Iran stands to emerge from the nuclear deal with not one atomic bomb but “a nuclear arsenal of 100 bombs and more.” He called upon the ambassadors present to report this to their respective foreign offices and have their countries help the U.S. President fix the “flawed” Iran nuclear deal right away. [tmwinpost] Netanyahu had…

Trump seems determined to go forward with a very hostile program toward Iran, and, although a baseless U.S. pullout from the nuclear deal seems unlikely, even the so-called 'adults in the room' are looking for a pretext. By Mitchell Plitnick Donald Trump rarely tries to hide his intentions. When he intends to do something reckless that will seriously compromise not just U.S. security but that of the entire world, he is not shy about sharing. The prime example of this is Trump’s determination to destroy the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the deal struck between the P5+1 and Iran…

President-elect Trump is just two months away from controlling America's nuclear arsenal. His supporters are already working on torpedoing Obama's greatest foreign policy success. By Shemuel Meir For many the combination of the words "Donald Trump" and "nuclear weapons" is the stuff of nightmares. "If we have nuclear weapons — why don't we use it?" asked Trump during his presidential campaign. In his view nuclear weapons is akin to conventional weapons, which means they can be used to promote U.S. interests. This is the man who on January 20th, 2017 will be in control of the largest nuclear arsenal in the world. Nuclear…

Whether Trump outright tears up the deal or simply orders his administration to take punitive actions against Iran, the end result may be the same: goodbye to the nuclear deal. By Derek Davison There will be plenty of time to dissect Donald Trump’s surprising victory over Hillary Clinton in last night’s presidential election, and what a President Trump will mean for American foreign policy generally. But one thing is clear: the nuclear deal negotiated between the P5+1 (the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and China) and Iran may very well be among the first casualties of the incoming Trump…

Yet the deal's opponents continue to focus on how it could, possibly, one day, under certain circumstances, go wrong. By Derek Davison The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is reporting that Iran has so far complied with its obligations under the terms of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which went into effect in January and limits Iran’s ability to produce nuclear weapons. The IAEA report, which is confidential but was apparently shown to the Reuters news agency, “did not point to any violations in Tehran’s observance of the deal”: “Throughout the reporting period, Iran had no more than 130 metric tonnes…

Despite what Israel's prime minister may have you believe, the Iran nuclear deal has succeeded in doing exactly what it set out to do: significantly decreasing the threat of a nuclear-armed Islamic Republic. By Shemuel Meir The annual Herzliya Conference made headlines a few weeks back simply due to the fact that former Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon and former Prime Minister Ehud Barak pulled out a no holds barred attack on Benjamin Netanyahu. It was interesting to hear that Ya'lon told the crowd that "at this point in time and in the near future, Israel does not face any existential threats."…

Now that the Iran nuclear deal has been implemented, the Islamic Republic, Egypt and others are likely to make a much more serious push for a nuclear-free Middle East. And Israel is in a much tighter spot than ever before. By Shemuel Meir A sigh of relief was heard in the corridors of Israel’s security establishment and Prime Minister Netanyahu’s office in May 2015. Its cause: Israel’s success in fending off and foiling a proposed resolution put forward by Egypt at the NPT Review Conference to establish a nuclear-weapon-free Middle East. Prime Minister Netanyahu sent President Obama a special thank…

The Prime Minister’s Office and the Israeli media were keen to report a on the triumph of squashing an Egyptian initiative to subject Israel’s nuclear capabilities to IAEA inspection. Bold claim, but is it true? By Shemuel Meir Around Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, headlines in Israel hailed a “victory” over Egypt on the nuclear front. Taking their cue from Prime Minister Netanyahu and his close advisor, Dore Gold (who also happens to be director-general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs), they portrayed the results of the vote at the General Conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)…

With at least 34 votes in the Senate, the Iran deal is a fait accompli. Netanyahu will continue to enjoy a reprieve from pressure about the peace process as a result of the diplomatic energy being spent on implementing the Iran deal and Obama's efforts to push it through Congress. Israel will also, however, face increased pressure regarding its own nuclear arsenal as part of a renewed Iranian push for regional disarmament. By Shemuel Meir The discourse on the nuclear deal between Iran and the Western powers continues to change. Opponents of the agreement are waging a last-ditch attempt to…

By Eyal Clyne (From Hebrew: Ofer Neiman) "The Iranian government is so heavily invested in the nuclear project, that if it were to give up this flag, it would mean nothing less than political suicide […] Iranian leaders have publicly chained themselves to this issue, to the extent that now it's a matter of political survival. One cannot just raise one's hands in surrender after years of investment and sacrifice… but for a fair package deal, which will acknowledge their rights, they will compromise… If they will be offered a decent way out, which can be brought to the [Iranian]…