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'Israel’s Iran Strategy has Collapsed' — 'Emerging Iran Agreement is the lesser of evils' (Danny Citronovicz, former Military Intelligence Iran desk manager, Haaretz):
The agreement crystallizing between Iran and the US is the lesser of evils compared to the bad alternatives that were laid before Trump: continuing a futile siege, or returning to a confrontation that would endanger US soldiers without guaranteeing any real change in Iranian thinking. The vast gap between the statements issued at the beginning of the campaign and the agreement that appears to be ending it demonstrates the magnitude of its failure. Above all, this war has proven that Netanyahu's strategy has collapsed. It is doubtful that any future US president would agree to return to such an adventure. And if Trump himself was not prepared to "finish the job”, it is hard to imagine who might do so in the future. Given Israel's inability to act alone without American cover, and in light of the campaign's outcomes, one thing has become clear: Israel's strategy has collapsed.
The agreement crystallizing between Iran and the US is the lesser of evils compared to the bad alternatives that were laid before Trump: continuing a futile siege, or returning to a confrontation that would endanger US soldiers without guaranteeing any real change in Iranian thinking. The vast gap between the statements issued at the beginning of the campaign and the agreement that appears to be ending it demonstrates the magnitude of its failure. Above all, this war has proven that Netanyahu's strategy has collapsed. It is doubtful that any future US president would agree to return to such an adventure. And if Trump himself was not prepared to "finish the job”, it is hard to imagine who might do so in the future. Given Israel's inability to act alone without American cover, and in light of the campaign's outcomes, one thing has become clear: Israel's strategy toward Iran has collapsed.
Citrinowicz: “Leaving the nuclear deal with Iran was one of the greatest strategic mistakes of the twenty-first century, and maybe would qualify as one of the biggest of the twentieth century as well, if you were to include it … It wasn’t an optimal agreement, but it had certain virtues, and the worst thing was that the US left the agreement with no counter-strategy. And Iran has learned so much since the US left the agreement, especially on enrichment … Israel and the US launched this campaign to topple the regime. In fact, they ended up strengthening it”.
American despair in the attempt to reach an agreement (Ronen Bergman, Yedioth Ahoronot):
The sharp-eyed noticed that in Netanyahu's tweet [on 24 May], he wrote that "Trump and I agreed that any final agreement with Iran must remove the nuclear danger”. A "final" agreement, that is, not the one they will sign now … Currently, the picture obtained from the information we have is much more complex than the headlines about an approaching agreement. There are contacts. There are drafts. There are mediators. There is a strong, almost desperate American desire to reach an arrangement … But there is still no signed agreement. It is not even clear that there is a final, agreed-upon draft … If the agreement that is signed, if it is signed, leaves Iran with a significant stockpile of fissile or highly enriched material, or allows it to maintain knowledge infrastructure, centrifuges, facilities and missile systems without a rigid and immediate inspection mechanism – then Netanyahu will have a very hard time presenting this as an achievement. He promised to remove existential threats, not manage them … He promised a profound change in the strategic balance. If in the end a deal is reached that will be mainly a freeze, a postponement, a vague formulation or a framework for continuing negotiations, it will be a severe blow to the narrative he presented to the Israeli public and the world ...
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