Nuclear talks between the United States and Iran, which began in Oman on Saturday, have raised questions about the risk of Tehran’s exploiting the diplomatic track to gain time and legitimacy for its nuclear program.
The first round of indirect talks between U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, mediated by Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi, concluded in Oman after a little more than two-and-a-half hours, according to international media reports. The next round of talks is scheduled to be held in Rome on April 19.
According to an April 12 report in The Wall Street Journal, Iran’s demands include rapid sanctions relief, access to billions in frozen assets, and an end to U.S. pressure on Chinese oil buyers. In return, Iran might offer to limit uranium enrichment to 3.67%, but is unlikely to reverse existing nuclear progress.
Col. (res.) Dr. Eran Lerman, vice president of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, told JNS in recent days that in his assessment, “at least in Trump’s mind and in [special United States Middle Envoy Steve] Witkoff’s mandate, it is clear that the move [negotiations] must block Iran’s path to nuclear weapons so that the North Korean nightmare is not repeated.”
An Iranian nuclear breakout would collapse the regional and global order and the Non-Proliferation Treaty, warned Lerman, adding that preventing this from happening must occur “within a limited time.”
Lerman, a former deputy director for foreign policy and international affairs at the National Security Council in the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office, and an ex-Israel Defense Forces Military Intelligence officer, stated, “If Witkoff is dragged into an open-ended negotiation about the future, accompanied by Qatari and Omani manipulations and every possible Iranian trick, we will enter a dangerous space. Therefore, Israel must put its own military option on the table.”
Professor Eitan Gilboa, an expert on U.S.-Israel relations and senior fellow at the Begin Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University, stated during an April 7 conference call hosted by the Jerusalem Press Club that “every time Prime Minister Netanyahu meets President Trump, there’s some kind of a surprise,” referring to Trump’s Oval Office announcement about direct talks with Iran with Netanyahu sitting beside him last week.
Gilboa explained that Iran-U.S. talks contradict longstanding Israeli strategic positions. “Netanyahu does not believe in negotiations. He does not believe that they will produce an agreement. And if they will produce an agreement, Iran is not going to implement it.”
He continued, “Netanyahu has been advocating a military action, preferably only by the United States or by the United States together with Israel. And so right now, this military option is gone. It’s not in the making. As long as negotiations with Iran are going to be held, there’s no military option.”
Gilboa warned about Tehran’s strategy to prolong diplomacy while evading meaningful restrictions.
“Iran is known for exploiting negotiations endlessly to avoid any restrictions about its nuclear program,” he said.
He stressed three key questions: How long will the talks go on? Is the United States seeking the complete dismantling of the nuclear program? And would any agreement also cover the Iranian ballistic-missile threat?
“If the negotiations were not successful, what are you [the U.S.] going to do about it?” Gilboa asked.
Brig. Gen. (res.) Professor Jacob Nagel, former acting national security adviser to Netanyahu and ex-head of Israel’s National Security Council, said during an April 4 podcast published by the Washington D.C.-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies that Tehran’s nuclear progress has reached a dangerous stage. “Iran is days away from producing at least a bomb’s worth of weapons-grade uranium, [or] multiple bombs worth of weapons-grade uranium within a few weeks,” Nagel stated. “They have a large capability.”
Nagel emphasized that Iran’s current enrichment levels have changed the nature of the threat. “The Iranians save today almost 280 kilos of 60% enriched uranium. … It’s 98 to 99% of the time needed to produce the 93% enriched uranium that you need for a weapon,” he explained. “They are really there already. They have the fissile material. They need two, three weeks.”
He added, “Some people say that Iran enlarged its nuclear program because President Trump withdrew from the JCPOA. And I think one of the most important works that FDD did is to show that the running to… the bomb or making the biggest violations started only after President Biden was elected, not after President Trump withdrew.”
Nagel described the nuclear archive seized by the Mossad from Tehran in January 2018 as clear evidence of Iran’s true intent. “There was a command to build five warheads, each one of them 10 kilotons. This is something that we found out in the archive,” he recalled. “They saved all the materials. Not for the history, they saved it for the point they would like to continue.”
According to Nagel, Washington must set red lines before negotiations. “The only way, if you really want to stop Iran from having a nuclear program, at least for now, is to put a precondition to these negotiations … rollback. Go back to what your situation was in 2009.”
These conditions should include the destruction of Iran’s enrichment facilities, the removal of enriched uranium, and the closure of weaponization activities, including ballistic-missile programs, said Nagel.
He issued a direct warning about the current talks: “The most dangerous point is to have a bad deal that President Trump will declare as a good deal. The moment this negotiation starts, Israel will be banned from doing what we need against Iran.”
In remarks to his Cabinet reported by Walla News on April 9, Netanyahu stated that Israel knew in advance about the talks between the United States and Iran on the nuclear program.
Netanyahu told ministers he had requested that Trump impose a time limit on negotiations with Tehran. He also told the cabinet that Israel is fully coordinated with the American administration on these matters.
‘A very doable typye of mission’
Gen. Charles “Chuck” Wald, USAF (ret.), Distinguished Fellow at the Washington D.C.-based Jewish Institute for National Security of America, and a former Deputy Commander of U.S. Military European Command, said during a JINSA webinar held last week that the U.S.’s military posture is robust and ready.
“There are six B2s at Diego Garcia,” Wald noted. “That’s a very doable type of mission,” adding that strikes on Iran from Diego Garcia would be “about a 16-hour round-trip mission.”
“And then there’ll be other assets as well, the KC46s [refuelers] that are going to be deployed there … space assets … a lot of intelligence assets. There are going to be a lot of drone-type assets, and a lot of ground and air-launch cruise missile-type assets.”
He estimated that 5,000-pound bunker-busting bombs and other bombs are ready for deployment. Wald said that once such a strike begins, “you’ve got to go after their [Iranian] nuclear capability and their [Iran’s] ability to expand their mission out into Israel again with their missiles.”
He added, “We can’t treat the Iranians the way we wish they were. We have to treat them the way they are. I have very little faith that the negotiations are going to work, and I have a real high probability in mind that we’re going to have to do something militarily.”