Why the US-EU agreement with Iran on its nuclear program is in Greece’s interest, and not a Tel Aviv-Tehran military showdown
“It’s Time to Bomb Iran,” is the headline of an article in Israel’s JNS, the highlights of which are as follows:
“Once the new nuclear deal is signed, Jerusalem’s legitimacy to act militarily against the Islamic Republic will dissolve,” says former Israeli Navy Commander Eliezer Marom.
With the United States and its P5+1 partners in the final stages of their frenzied race to sign a new version of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran, several retired IDF Generals and current think tank experts they have taken the opportunity to insist that “a bad deal is better than no deal”.
Take Ziv, for example, where in a Saturday afternoon panel on Channel 12’s “Meet the Press,” the former head of the IDF’s Directorate of Operations argued that the absence of an agreement, or its violation by either party, would not prevent Iran from crossing the nuclear threshold in any case.
He then went on, curiously, to downplay the significance of the multibillion-dollar deal a deal would grant Tehran to develop its nuclear capabilities, while at the same time emphasizing that the money would be spent on terrorism. Actually.
However, he added, a deal would buy “critical time” for Israel, whatever that means.
Although everyone else in the discussion, with the exception of former Israeli Navy commander Vice Admiral Eliezer Marom, admitted that a deal is imminent and that a nuclear Iran would pose an existential threat to the Jewish state, they made two absurd claims.
One was that former US President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the JCPOA in 2018 was a mistake because it allowed Tehran to continue its nuclear program unmonitored.
The other was that former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu’s firm stance against the deal and famous speech to a joint session of Congress in 2015 did nothing but anger outgoing US President Barack Obama and he was forced to abstain from vetoing a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning Israel.
The purpose of this distortion, apart from killing two birds (Trump and Netanyahu) with one stone, is to defend the interim government’s policy of “anyone but Bibi” bowing to the administration of US President Joe Biden.
Prime Minister Yair Lapid, like his immediate predecessor and “replacement”, Naftali Bennett, had set out to show that when Netanyahu was no longer at the helm, Israel would enjoy full bipartisan support in America.
That’s why Bennett promised Biden last year that Jerusalem would not make any military or other moves without informing Washington first. Lapid, of course, took that torch and ran with it.
The problem is that it’s not a mutual arrangement. Perhaps that explains why Lapid has struggled to communicate with Biden recently. The latter leader clearly does not care, once again, about the safeguards that should be included in the deal to make it palatable to Israel.
Meanwhile, Lapid was trying to perform some kind of pointless balancing act. On the one hand, he announced on Wednesday that “if a nuclear deal is signed, it does not bind Israel.”
During a briefing with foreign correspondents at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem, he said: “The Iranians are making demands again. negotiators are ready to make concessions again. This is not the first time this has happened. Western countries draw a red line, the Iranians ignore it, and the red line is moving.”
He was referring to Tehran’s response to what the European Union described last week as the “final draft” of the deal, telling Iran to “take it or leave it.”
However, as he pointed out, “The Iranians, as always, did not say ‘No.’ They said, ‘Yes, but,’ and then sent a draft of their own, with more changes and requirements.”
After listing various reasons that the impending deal is “bad”, he concluded.
“We will act to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear state. We are not prepared to live with a nuclear threat hanging over our heads from an extremist, violent Islamist regime. That won’t happen, because we won’t let it happen.”
On the other hand, he was surprised, and even disappointed, by similar comments made by Mossad chief David Barnea on Thursday. Apparently, Barnea’s wording and tone were not to his liking, as they may have been interpreted by the White House as overly critical.
However, all Barnea did was call the deal a “strategic disaster” for Israel and declare that the United States is “rushing into an agreement that is ultimately based on lies.”
Nothing inaccurate there. But Lapid is worried about offending Biden and even more loath to sound like Bibi. So he made sure to tell the foreign press:
“We have an open dialogue with the US government on all matters of disagreement. I appreciate their willingness to listen and cooperate. The United States is and will remain our closest ally, and President Biden is one of the best friends Israel has ever known.”
With friends like these, Lapid would do well to shut out voices like Ziv’s and heed Marom, who rejected the “buying time” excuse. Once an agreement is signed, he said, Israel’s legitimacy to act will dissolve, so the window is closing fast.
Asked if he meant Israel should launch an attack on Iran, he was unequivocal.
“Yes,” he said, as his colleagues poked their heads out of the sand long enough to shake them.
No wonder Iran and its proxies in the Palestinian Authority are trying to prevent Netanyahu from winning the upcoming Knesset elections.”
From the above it appears that there is a dichotomy in Israel as to whether a bad deal is better than no deal between Iran and the US-EU regarding its nuclear program
The new Israeli government is overwhelmingly in favor of the US, which wants to reach an agreement with Iran
However, both within it and in the opposition, there are voices insisting that the time has come for an Israeli attack against Iran, since once the new nuclear deal is signed, Jerusalem’s legitimacy to act militarily against Tehran will cease to exist.
But what if Israel strikes militarily against Iran now and what are the consequences for Greece?
If Israel attacks Iran militarily, it is a given that this war will have the potential to escape the dimensions of a regional conflict and lead to something much bigger, while in addition to military casualties and losses, the economies of the West, including Greece, will they were now facing a terrible energy problem
In addition to the direct military confrontation between the two countries, it will involve Hezbollah, Hamas, the Palestinians, as well as the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) forces located in Syria, with a high probability that Israel will find itself fighting simultaneously with Lebanon, Syria , Palestine, Iran
Terrorist strikes are expected around the world against Israeli and American targets
We understand that the USA, despite initial objections and hesitations, will rush to Israel’s aid, so it is very likely that due to the presence of American forces in the Gulf countries, but also due to the Abraham Accords, they will also be involved in military operations
Russia, which is in Syria, is very likely to help Iran.
Finally, Greece, which is an ally of Israel and the USA, in our estimation, would stand with them, providing ports-airports as bases of support and supply of their forces
The possibility of our country being targeted by Iran, with terrorist attacks and missile attacks, in such a case would have some small chances
Turkey will be asked to decide what to do, whether to remain neutral until the end, whether to help Israel-US, or Iran.
Our assessment is that the attitude of the Turks, if they take a stand, will also show where Erdogan is going in the end. Perhaps here as well as in the Ukraine-Russia war, Turkey will follow a two-faced policy, with the pretense of a peace-making country, reaping safe benefits from it
However, it is more likely that gradually and depending on the developments in the field, Erdogan will lean towards Israel, seeing it as a very good opportunity to emerge as a friend-ally with Tel Aviv, normalizing relations with it and at the same time asking in advance for his stance, more in return from the US-NATO for the help he will give, which will not be enough just to buy 40 F-16BLOCK-70 and 80 modernization kits of the same number of fighters
We would not be surprised if Erdogan asked in such a case for the lifting of the sanctions on the S-400, and even rejoining the F-35 program
For the above reasons, Greece is not in the interest of a military confrontation between Israel and Iran, since under certain conditions it could benefit Turkey, upgrading its role to US-Israel at the expense of
