Page 11 - MEOG Week 03 2021

MEOG POLICY MEOG

he’s selected Iran negotiators Anthony Blinken Hopkins University School of Advanced Inter-
and Jake Sullivan as his intended secretary of national Studies, as saying.
state and national security adviser, respectively,
among other 2015 Iran players. Israel’s military options
Trump’s line has been that Iran must agree to One worry in Iran policy will always be that
further concessions on its nuclear development Israel could take matters into its own hands.
programme, major restrictions on its ballistic Reuters cited an Israeli newspaper, Israel
missile development and refrain from arming Hayom, as reporting on January 14 that Tel Aviv
allied militias across Middle East conflict zones was revising military options for a possible clash
if it wishes to reach a Nuclear Deal Mark II agree- with Iran as Prime Minister Benjamin Netan-
ment with the US and be released from the sanc- yahu’s government braces for differences with
tions noose. Israel and the Saudis have backed the incoming US administration on the Iranian
Trump to the hilt on this, but there is no sign that nuclear programme.
Biden will see such a road as the way forward. Israel, in underlining the gravity of the situa-
More likely is that Biden will push for new tion, often points to Iranian rhetoric that Israel is
deals with the Iranians in these areas once the a state that should not exist.
JCPOA is revived with full American and Ira- Israel Hayom reported that the military is
nian participation. crafting three options to “undermine Iran’s
Getting back into the original deal “is the nuclear efforts or, if need be, counter Iranian
floor and not the ceiling” for the Biden admin- aggression, which will soon be presented to the
istration on Iran, a person familiar with the government”.
incoming administration’s thinking on the mat- The paper did not cite any sources, but it
ter, was on January 18 quoted as saying by The went on to quote Israeli Defence Minister Benny
Associated Press, adding: “It doesn’t stop there.” Gantz as stating: “Israel needs to have a military
Given Trump’s crude breach of diplomatic option on the table.”
convention in pulling the US from the multilat- Israeli Finance Minister Israel Katz lately
eral accord despite Iran’s full compliance with it, acknowledged on Army Radio: “There are dis-
the hardliners in Iran will have an easy time in putes [with Biden] regarding the perspective on
making the case that agreeing to Biden’s demand Iran, and of course that will prove challenging.”
for new concessions would be foolhardy when Israeli Intelligence Minister Eli Cohen, mean-
the new US president’s successor could once while, was reported by Reuters as telling Ynet
more rip up commitments and promises. TV that the Netanyahu government was not
“His ability to move the needle is ... I think yet in formal dialogue with the incoming Biden
hampered by the doubt about America’s capac- administration.
ity and by the scepticism and worry about what But asked if Israel was trying through infor-
comes after Biden,” the AP, in the same article on mal channels to sway Biden on Iran, Cohen said:
the JCPOA, cited Vali Nasr, a professor at Johns “Yes. There are efforts.”™

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