Mick Hartley

From the Times:

Mossad’s assassination a year ago of the brigadier in charge of Iran’s nuclear programme did little to hinder its development, an Israeli official has admitted, as the country’s “direct action” campaign against Tehran is increasingly called into question.

The “senior official”, who spoke to Israeli television on condition of anonymity, was discussing the choices Israel faces as talks in Vienna over Iran’s nuclear programme remain deadlocked.

Israel has been threatening to bomb Iran’s nuclear sites if it believes it is about to build a nuclear weapon. But over the past 15 years it has depended on a campaign of sabotage and assassination, openly discussed but never admitted, of Iranian nuclear scientists….

Last week The New York Times reported US officials had also warned that Israel’s campaign against Iran in recent years had been “counterproductive”. As well as killing at least four or five nuclear scientists in the past 12 years, Israel is also believed to have sabotaged Iran’s nuclear facilities with explosive devices, drones and computer malware.

The campaign had merely encouraged the Iranians to “build back better”, the US officials were reported to have said.

Counterproductive? What are the Israelis supposed to do? Sit back and wait to be annihilated?

When the talks broke off for the Iranian presidential election in June, they were said to be close to agreement. Both sides — the Iranians on the one hand, and the US on the other, with European countries mediating — have agreed in principle to return to the terms of the 2015 deal torn up by President Trump.

That would reinstate severe limits to the nuclear programme in return for the lifting of the nuclear-related sanctions reimposed by Trump.

However, the Iranians are now demanding compensation for their economic losses and a guarantee that America will not pull out of the deal again, something President Biden cannot give, especially given the possibility that Trump may stand again for the White House in 2024.

Everyone knows that Iran's building a nuclear weapon. They've as good as admitted it. And everyone knows, or should know, that they've vowed to eliminate Israel – as in, wipe it from the face of the earth. You'd expect that a country that had declared so openly that its main foreign policy objective was to annihilate another country would be universally shunned and ostracised – but then it's only Israel they're going to destroy. So here they are, the US and Europe, back to the absurd negotiations with a country that we know can't be trusted, and back to removing the sanctions – which of course is all Tehran's interested in.

Well, that and doing the will of Allah.

Update: see Jerry Coyne's eloquent post on the subject.