A Rescue Package for Tehran?
If the leaked draft US-Iran memorandum looks even broadly like this, then from an Israeli perspective, it is hard to celebrate it as a diplomatic breakthrough.
It looks more like a very familiar Middle Eastern genre: the West rewards a regime for perhaps, at some later point, being willing to talk about what it should have stopped doing long ago.
According to the draft, Iran would receive a 60-day negotiation window. In the meantime, it could gain access to frozen funds, oil and energy sanctions would be eased, trade through the Strait of Hormuz could resume, and the prospect of economic reconstruction would be placed on the table. In plain English: Tehran gets breathing room, money, and time first. Then we shall see what, if anything, it is prepared to give in return.
In Israel, it is not difficult to see why that order of events is problematic.
The question is not whether avoiding a wider war is desirable. Of course it is. No normal Israeli wants more funerals, more rocket alerts, more shelters, or more long nights in which children sleep with their shoes on. The real question is whether this agreement actually reduces the danger, or merely gives Iran back the time and money it needs for the next round.
The biggest problem is not only what appears in the draft. It is what is missing from it.
Where is the hard restriction on Iran's ballistic missile program? Where is the verifiable dismantling of the financing for Hezbollah, Hamas, Iraqi Shiite militias, and the Houthis? Where is the immediate and irreversible dismantling of nuclear infrastructure? Where is the mechanism that does not simply trust Tehran's goodwill, but monitors, enforces, and punishes violations immediately?
Because when it comes to Iran, the probability that promises such as 'we will never develop nuclear weapons' can be taken seriously is roughly equal to the Revolutionary Guard folding peace doves out of recycled ballistic missiles.
Israel is not conducting an abstract debate about Iran, and it is not observing this regime from a conference room. Israel is the target whose destruction Tehran has treated for decades as a political program. Israel is the country surrounded by terrorist organizations armed, trained, and funded by Iran. So when an agreement pushes the nuclear question into the future, barely addresses missiles, and offers no real guarantee regarding the proxy network, turning on the alarm in Jerusalem is not paranoia. It is basic strategic sanity.
It is especially troubling that the draft allegedly also touches on Lebanon. In other words, the United States and Iran would be discussing a framework for halting hostilities that could indirectly limit Israel's operations against Hezbollah. But Israel is not a side character in its own security. It is not a piece of decoration at a signing ceremony in Washington. If Hezbollah remains armed in southern Lebanon, and if it continues to function as Iran's forward operating base, then a 'ceasefire' is not peace. It is merely a pause between two rounds of rockets.
A rescue package draft
Bad agreements in the Middle East tend to share one common feature: they do not eliminate danger; they rename it. A terrorist organization becomes a 'regional actor.' Blackmail becomes 'de-escalation.' Sanctions relief becomes an 'incentive.' Strategic retreat, naturally, becomes 'bold diplomacy.'
Israel's historical experience is less literary. If a regime is simultaneously building nuclear capacity, developing missiles, funding Hezbollah, supporting Hamas, destabilizing the region, and then closing the Strait of Hormuz, it should not be rewarded for agreeing to negotiate. It should first have to prove that it has abandoned the strategy that brought the region to this point.
Peace is not made real by the signing of a document. It becomes real when, after the document is signed, there are fewer weapons, less money flowing to terrorist organizations, fewer rockets in storage, and fewer reasons for Israeli families to count the seconds between impacts in a stairwell.
If this agreement truly shuts down Iran's nuclear program, stops its missile program, cuts off Hezbollah's financial lifelines, and restores regional security, then it deserves support.
But if it merely gives Tehran money, time, and legitimacy while postponing the most dangerous questions, then it is not a peace agreement. It is closer to a rescue package for a weakened but still dangerous regime.
Israel has every reason to watch this not with applause, but with very cold attention.
The alleged 14-point US-Iran memorandum draft
The following points are based on the alleged 14-point US-Iran memorandum draft reported by Mehr News Agency and summarized by The Economic Times. Important note: neither Washington nor Tehran has officially published or confirmed the document, and its contents have not been independently verified. The Economic Times presents it as an Iranian media report, not as a final or official agreement.
An immediate and lasting end would be declared to military operations on all fronts, including Lebanon.
The United States would undertake not to interfere in Iran's internal affairs and to respect Iran's sovereignty.
The US naval blockade against Iran would be fully lifted within 30 days.
The United States would withdraw its forces from areas surrounding Iran.
The Strait of Hormuz would be reopened within 30 days, under Iranian conditions and regulations.
Sanctions on Iranian oil, petrochemical products, and related exports would be suspended.
Iran would receive full access to revenues from its energy exports.
The United States and its allies would undertake to develop a reconstruction and economic development plan for Iran worth at least $300 billion.
The parties would open a 60-day negotiation period aimed at reaching a final agreement on nuclear issues and broader sanctions relief.
Iran would again commit, under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, not to produce nuclear weapons.
The United States would undertake not to increase its military presence in the region and not to impose new sanctions on Iran during the negotiation period.
During the negotiation period, $24 billion in frozen Iranian assets would be released, half of it before the formal start of negotiations.
A monitoring mechanism would be established to oversee the implementation of the agreement.
The final agreement would be endorsed by a United Nations Security Council resolution.
Mehr also reported that final negotiations would begin only after three conditions were met: the release of half of Iran's frozen funds, the suspension of sanctions on Iranian oil exports, and the lifting of the naval blockade. Image Credits: - Strait of Hormuz (MODIS 2020-12-04) via Wikimedia Commons - Navy ships transit the Strait of Hormuz: U.S. Navy Photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Alex R. Forster/Released.
