Call It What It Is: A Bad Deal  

Yesterday’s headline in Israel’s Yediot Aharonot, summed up in two words the prevailing sentiment in Israel over President Trump’s emerging cease-fire agreement with Iran: “Bad Deal.”

What is to be signed is not a peace agreement, it is not the unconditional surrender document President Trump promised in the early days of the war and, for all practical purposes, simply resets things to where they were when the war began with little mention of the things that are most important to us here in Israel.

Basically, the document is a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the two parties, the US and Iran, and leaves out Israel, which until most recently was a full partner on whom the US depended for significant military support, which report was fully granted.

Parsing the available information, but without access to the full text of the MOU which is still in discussion, following seem to be the key points:

• Both the US and Iran will halt military operations on all fronts, including Lebanon.
• The Strait of Hormuz will open immediately upon signing of the MOU.
• The US will begin dismantling its naval blockade of Iran immediately.
• Iran pledges to clear the mines it scattered across the Strait of Hormuz.
• The cease-fire will be extended for another 60 days to allow for talks on a final accord.
• The two sides will begin tackling the nuclear issues in detail in a new round of negotiations.
• Iran affirmed that it would never seek to build or procure a nuclear weapon (something that was also included in the JCPOA signed with the US under President Obama in 2015 which was then openly violated).

Given the fact that at the start of the war the Strait of Hormuz was fully open, there was no blockage of shipping lanes by either the US or Iran, and the war had not yet started, it is difficult to see what has been accomplished.

What we do know is that Israel successfully cleared Iran’s air space of any defensive capability, making it possible for joint US-Israel attacks against Iran to be completed without casualties. Everything else is as flimsy as cotton candy.

Iran still has the ballistic missile and drone capability to wreak havoc throughout the region, essential elements of Iran’s nuclear development capability remain in place, the Strait of Hormuz has been successfully weaponized by Iran and the world economy sits on the brink of collapse as a result. Certainly, Israel is only moderately more secure than it was at the beginning of the war while still potentially threatened by Iranian missiles and drones. Iran maintains a substantial stockpile of ballistic missiles while, at the same time, the United States seems to have burned through its own munitions supplies to an alarming extent, in spite of the remonstrations of the Secretary of War to the contrary.

All of this falls far short of the goals laid out by Prime Minister Netanyahu at the start of our two wars with Iran. Netanyahu declared that the objective was “to remove the existential threats” to Israel. That meant destroying any nuclear threat from Iran and its ballistic missile program, he said, as well as “creating the conditions” for the Iranian people to topple the government.

We also demanded an end to Tehran’s support of its proxy forces hostile to Israel, including Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen, as well as support for Hamas in Gaza. None of our key point were mentioned at all in the MOU nor have they been realized even minimally.

Therefore, it is difficult to dispute the comment of Yair Lapid, the leader of Israel’s parliamentary opposition and a former interim prime minister, when he said he hoped the reports about the agreement with Iran were not true. “But if they are,” he stated, “this is one of the most shocking failures of Israel’s foreign and security policy.” Indeed!!!

While there is no mention of the US returning the tens of billions of dollars of Iran’s money sequestered in US banks, rumor has it that Iran sorely wants those funds returned and may not agree to signing anything without a US guarantee that those dollars will go back to Iran. Further that should the US agree to repatriate those funds it would be a major setback for Trump given his constant criticism of Obama for having sent $400 million in cash to Iran after the signing off the JCPOA in 2015.

And of course there is Lebanon. Israel is clearly not ready to stop the fighting there nor withdraw from Lebanese territory until it is comfortable that the north of Israel is safe for our citizens to live there. No other county would stand idly by if daily rocket and drone attacks were being launched at them from their next-door neighbor. For sure, the US would not stand idly by if there were rockets coming in from Canada or Mexico. Yet Iran wants this as a part of “the deal” which would then put Israel is a very vulnerable position.

For sure the US has a right and even an obligation to do whatever it sees is in its best interests. That is a given right of any sovereign nation. Nevertheless, the US depended on Israel to partner in the war against Iran. If the US now throws Israel “under the bus” as it were, then effectively we here in Israel were being “used” by the Americans in order to achieve their goals rather than, in partnership, to achieve our combined goals.

I have been consistently concerned about the cost to Israel of Trump’s friendship.  Now the cost is becoming clearer. We are friends of convenience and when push comes to shove and the road gets rocky, we are conveniently forgotten in an out of the way rest stop.

Machiavelli is reputed to have said: “It is not titles that honor men, but men that honor titles.” Would that this be the case in every diplomatic negotiation and that the individuals involved would be cognizant of the subtle difference as well.