Mossad chief Barnea to fly next week to Washington to present Israeli intelligence on Iran before Congress.
https://www.jpost.com-By LAHAV HARKOV
Prime Minister Yair Lapid(photo credit: AMOS BEN-GERSHOM/GPO)
The US will not reach a good deal with Iran without a credible military threat, Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid warned on Sunday.
World powers “have to get Iran to sign a much better agreement, what the Americans themselves called ‘longer and stronger,’” Lapid said. “Such an agreement can only be reached with a credible military threat, so the Iranians see they will have to pay a heavy price for their recalcitrance.”
Lapid argued that the US presentation of bunker-buster bombs able to attack Iran’s underground nuclear facilities was what led Tehran to sign the original nuclear agreement in 2015.
A good deal would be longer, in that “it would not have an end date,” Lapid said, and stronger in that “the oversight would be tighter and it would also deal with Iran’s ballistic missile program and its involvement in terror around the Middle East.”
The prime minister’s comments in a press briefing came after Defense Minister Benny Gantz met with US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan on Friday. Gantz told Sullivan that the US needs to put a viable military option on the table even after a nuclear deal is reached, and that such a threat will be a strong deterrent against Iran violating the agreement or developing a nuclear weapon when it expires.
Lapid said that he “instructed the IDF and the Mossad to be ready to protect Israel’s security in any scenario; the Americans understand this and the world understands this.”
He reiterated that Israel is not a party to the Iran deal nor is it dependent on world powers’ decisions, and that no agreement between them will limit Israel’s actions against the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program.
The prime minister spoke to journalists amid concerns in Israel about an impending deal between the US and Iran, several days after Washington submitted its response to Iran’s demands following a draft of the nuclear deal by the EU that was meant to be final, according to the talks’ coordinator, the EU. National Security Adviser Eyal Hulata was in Washington last week to meet with Sullivan on the topic.
Lapid defended his government’s approach to the US as it negotiates indirectly with Iran, saying that he does not want to harm Jerusalem’s strategic ties with Washington and sought to ensure that the Americans would at least listen to what Israel has to say on the topic.
Keeping disputes mostly behind closed doors has led to “achievements” for Israel, Lapid said, such as the US keeping the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps classified as a Foreign Terrorist Organization and stopping other forms of sanctions relief, as well as reassurances that the International Atomic Energy Agency’s investigations into undeclared nuclear sites in Iran would not be closed.
Lapid argued that the draft is not what US President Joe Biden said he is seeking when he visited Israel.
“The deal should not let $100 billion flow to Iran per year without them showing restraint in response,” a senior diplomatic source said. “It needs to be a deal that will continue forever to prevent them from getting a nuclear weapon.”
Mossad chief David Barena criticizing the US Biden administration
The senior diplomatic source pushed back against media reports that Mossad chief David Barnea went farther in criticism of the Biden administration than Lapid did, saying that was conjecture on the part of journalists. There is no tension between Lapid and Barnea, and they spoke twice over the weekend, the source added.
Barnea is expected to speak before a US Congressional committee next week, in a trip that was planned before the Mossad chief’s comments next week.
Though Barnea vehemently opposes the Iran deal, the source denied that this contradicts Lapid’s approach of not doing what former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu did in 2015 and go behind the White House’s back to lobby Congress against a deal.
That being said, Israeli officials, such as Ambassador to the US Mike Herzog, hold meetings with members of Congress who oppose the deal.