The New Iran Deal: Misconceptions that Obscure the Whole Picture
The JCPOA Parameters are the Framework for the New Agreement. There is No Need to Reinvent the Wheel
A strategic surprise. President Trump issued an urgent invitation to Prime Minister Netanyahu to come to the White House, and informed him on live television that the US was entering into negotiations with Iran for a new nuclear agreement. In one moment, a question mark was put on the historical role that Netanyahu had taken upon himself, as described in his autobiography, – to torpedo the JCPOA and destroy Iran’s nuclear sites. The role of Protector of Israel. Netanyahu’s distress only increased as reports came in of progress in the meetings between the President’s envoy Steve Witkoff and the Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi, and the nuclear diplomacy’s fast progress during the month of April. The likelihood of a US green light for an attack on Iran decreased.
In today’s article, I will try to examine and decipher the latest developments in light of the reactions in Israel. To outline the dominant perceptions on the Iranian nuclear issues and the way they are reflected in the Israeli strategic discourse. To point out the misperceptions in the Israeli discourse. In my opinion, this could serve as a good starting point for a solution to the Iranian enigma: is it possible to reach a new nuclear agreement that will prevent Iran from taking the route to nuclear weapons?
The first misconception. Except for a few commentators who saw signs for cautious optimisms, the Israeli interpretive narrative concerning the chances for a new nuclear agreement was characterised by a conformist unanimity: it is a flawed agreement which endangers Israel. For the last two decades, Netanyahu has succeeded in burning into the Israeli mind, including among the elites, the security system and academia, the concept of a “bad nuclear agreement”. This became a kind of irrefutable axiom. The fear of a nuclear agreement that is “bad” by definition, alongside the hope that the discussions between Witkoff and the Iranian foreign minister would reach a dead-end. Then the long awaited desired military option would be back on the table.
The second misconception. The entrenched axiom of Obama’s nuclear agreement as a “bad” agreement removed from the Israeli discourse the JCPOA’s advantages and hampered the understanding of the declared outcome for which the US and Iran were striving of reaching a new nuclear agreement whose aim is the blocking of the nuclear weapons route. The advantages that derive from the previous agreement’s parameters which can provide a basis for a new agreement: permitted accumulation of enriched uranium at a low stock level , removal of tons of enriched uranium outside Iran’s borders (within the framework of the JCPOA, ten tons of enriched uranium were transferred to Russia), stopping high level enriched uranium (60%), and a rollback (not just a freezing) of high level enriched uranium to a lower level. It might be necessary to agree on the level a “higher” level for low level than that of the JCPOA. Restriction of the advanced centrifuge stockpile and storage of the surplus centrifuges under IAEA safekeeping (as in the JCPOA).
In regard to domestic uranium enrichment, it is worth noting that there are other countries who do not possess nuclear weapons – Germany, Japan, Brazil, Argentina – which enrich uranium on their territory for civil nuclear purposes.
The third misconception. At the core of the JCPOA, there were expiry dates (sunset clauses) up to the year 2031, following the end of the 15 year period. The “sunset” clauses were the main argument of the opponents to the 2015 JCPOA. In their view, not only is Iran misleading the world, it is also developing or planning to developing a clandestine nuclear program. The claims is that when they reach the year 2031, Iran will take an immediate leap to a violation of the agreement and fast-track the development of nuclear weapons. This argument, in my opinion, is mere speculation: the sunset clauses are not unique to the Iranian nuclear agreement. They form a standard part of all nuclear agreements. When the expiry date is reached, it is customary for the sides, as in the START agreements between Russia and the US, to discuss the extension of the agreement.
Furthermore: in order to ensure that there will not be an Iranian leap to nuclear arms, the JCPOA was tightly encased in the most intrusive verification and monitoring regime in nuclear history. Including the Additional Protocol concerning surprise inspections at non declared sites. Including inspection and blocking of nuclear weaponization possibilities. Now we reach the central point: IAEA monitoring is not limited to the sunset clauses. The deep monitoring regime is mean to continue for ever, with no time limit, as long as Iran has not withdrawn from the NPT and not expelled the IAEA monitors.
The fourth misconception. Underestimating and undervaluing the central function of the NPT. As one of only four states in the world who is not party to the NPT, Israel is, paradoxically, one of the main beneficiaries of the treaty which bans nuclear proliferation. Israel sits in a safe circle of the countries surrounding it, all of whom, including Iran, are parties to the NPT and do not possess nuclear weapons. Furthermore: the debate in Israel ignored a central pillar of the 2015 JCPOA. In the introduction to the Agreement, Iran made a unique commitment to the US and the superpowers that in addition to its basic commitment in accordance with the NPT, it would refrain under all circumstances from developing or purchasing of nuclear weapons. In international relations, such a declaration has great weight and importance.
The fifth misconception. The danger that Iran is a nuclear threshold state is one of the Israeli strategic discourse’s unquestioned elements. Especially following the latest IAEA reports concerning the acceleration of 60% enriched uranium. The dramatic increase in the stockpile of high-level enriched uranium especially at an accelerated enrichment rate (35 kilograms of 60% enriched uranium per month as opposed to 6-9 kilograms in the past). This would theoretically enable the production of fissile material sufficient for one bomb within a month.
But these are the latent components of a nuclear threshold state. There are other and important components that are generally ignored in the Israeli discourse. A nuclear threshold state is a state outside the NPT which has accumulated without any interference a stockpile of fissile material combined with a detailed military plan for the development of nuclear weapons. This would only be possible thanks to its being outside the NPT and the IAEA monitoring system. At any one moment, it could decide to cross the nuclear threshold and become a nuclear weapons state by carrying out a nuclear explosion. Examples are India, Pakistan, and North Korea.
Iran, a country party to the NPT, does not fall under this definition of a nuclear threshold state. It is likely to enter this dangerous category if there is an increase in the voices of Iran’s elite and the decision-making circles who are calling for a change in Iran’s nuclear doctrine in the direction of the development of nuclear weapons, withdrawal from the NPT and the expulsion of the IAEA inspectors. As in the North Korean model. In the last twenty years (since the halting of the Iran nuclear weapons program in 2013), Iran is not there. Furthermore, the quantitative components of enriched uranium that define a nuclear threshold state are reversible and can be disassembled. Iran already did this as part of the JCPOA, and has expressed its willingness to discuss this in the framework of a new agreement.
The sixth misconception. In Israel, there is a tendency to ignore the DNI reports on the National Intelligence Assessment which obligate the US President. The Annual Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community (March 2025) passed through Israel, like its predecessors, unnoticed by the media and think tanks. The explanation for Israel’s ignoring of the report can be found in one line of the National Intelligence Report that totally contradicts Netanyahu’s declarations and the standard Israeli interpretive narrative. This sentences states “we continue to assess Iran is not building a nuclear weapons and that Khamenei has not reauthorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003”. A similar formulation has been used in the National Intelligence Assessment report over the past two decades.
Why is this important? According to the detailed analysis that I presented in my previous article, the annual National Intelligence Assessment has been the main obstacle in recent decades preventing US Presidents from granting Netanyahu authorization to attack Iran’s nuclear sites. And now, we have received confirmation of this view. The name Tulsi Gabbard does not mean a great deal to the wider Israeli public. But according to a dramatic article in the New York Times, DNI director Tulsi Gabbard played a dominant role in Trump’s decision to block Netanyahu’s plans to launch a preventive war against Iran’s nuclear sites in May. The path chosen in the White House discussion was to oppose an attack on Iran and to open negotiations for a new nuclear agreement with Iran.
Interim Summary. It would appear that Steve Witkoff’s pragmatic approach for reaching a new nuclear agreement overrode that of National Security Advisor Michael Waltz who called for a total nuclear dismantlement of zero enriched uranium and zero centrifuges (the “Libyan model” that Netanyahu wanted to advance). This is also the conclusion that we can reach, in spite of the diplomatic fog of war, from the positive declarations made by the two sides and the accelerated pace of the Oman-Rome meetings. With an emphasis on the opening of the negotiations on the level of professional working groups. It would seem that the JCPOA, in spite of Trump’s emotional hostility to the “Obama Agreement” is the format and template for the agreement under discussion. The parameters for an agreement to stop the path to military nuclear weapons already exist. There is no need to reinvent the wheel.
Looking Ahead. All the partners to the effort to reach a new nuclear agreement, whose aim is to decrease the dangers of military escalation, will have to use diplomatic creativity to overcome two main obstacles that could prevent the achievement of the agreement, and they are not connected to enriched uranium or centrifuges. The first obstacle is the issue of ballistic missiles. The second obstacle is connected to the relations between Iran and the IAEA. The issue of the “open files” regarding uranium traces that were found at two undeclared sites of the past nuclear weapons program. The absence of satisfactory Iranian answers to the IAEA could lead to the declaration of Iran as a state in violation of the NPT and monitoring agreements . As a result, the Iran file could be returned to the UN Security Council under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter for action against threats to peace. Iran considers resolutions under Chapter 7 that allow for military intervention an intolerable situation. This could lead to escalation on its part to the point of announcing withdrawal from the NPT and expulsion of the IAEA inspectors.
Shemuel Meir is an independent Israeli strategic analyst. Graduate of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and a former IDF and Tel Aviv University researcher.