Israel's immediate reflex on Sunday, the collective knee-jerk reaction, was to declare that the agreement reached between Iran and the West was a dangerous calamity. There are many reasons for this, but the main one is that Iran has given up not one iota of its nuclear program, while the world has not only recognized its right to enrich uranium, but has also agreed to ease the crippling constraints of the sanctions. The potential danger is clear: While Iran retains the ability to pursue a nuclear weapon at a moment's notice, the war-weary West would have a hard time forming an unwavering and united front against it should one be needed again. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif best defined the situation on Sunday, when he boasted that "the threat of a strike [on Iran] has been lifted." Alongside the pessimistic views expressed in Israel on Sunday, another, more hushed, perspective has been voiced, alleging that while the agreement is surely bad, it is the lesser of several evils. Some defense officials said the deal had forced Iran to agree to things it has previously considered taboo, including restrictions on plutonium production at the Arak heavy-water reactor, a ban on new centrifuges and close, daily and continuous supervision, including surprise inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency, whose inspectors will now be granted access to facilities they had been previously barred from entering. This approach is based on the assumption that Iran was driven to make this deal out of dire distress, and that since Tehran knows that the scaled mitigations it has been afforded cannot improve its economic situation in one fell swoop, it will avoid sabotaging the deal, at least for the foreseeable future. Both perspectives are logical, as both try to look ahead: the deal inked in Geneva is an interim agreement, the nature of which, for better or for worse, is in the eye of the beholder. It is only one step toward a permanent agreement that is meant to rid the world of the Iranian nuclear threat, while allowing Iran back into the international community. The months leading up to this permanent agreement will be critical for Israel: It's crunch time, the final stretch that years of overt and covert efforts have been directed toward in the fight against Iran's nuclear ambitions. It is highly likely that Iran's actions will be guarded, making things doubly difficult for Israel, especially since the threat of a military strike no longer carries the punch it once used to -- not only because it was uttered too many times, but because now it also faces global opposition. To overcome this objective difficulty, Israel needs to rehabilitate, yet again, its relationship with the U.S., and it will need to do so while the clock is counting down toward a permanent deal with Iran, as well as a deal with the Palestinians. Slogans such as "Yitzhar for Bushehr" are bound to make an appearance, forcing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government into a complex diplomatic, and possibly political, maneuver.
One possible solution to this situation may actually lie with the absence of the permanent deal with Iran: Several experts hedged Sunday that contrary to Iran's statements, the ayatollahs' regime may seek to forcibly make the interim deal into the permanent deal, as it will allow Iran to maintain its nuclear ability while seeing the sanctions lifted. Paradoxically, this situation will allow their rivals, led by Israel, to become a credible and practical opposition.
