How the Iran nuclear deal could be a big win for Israel

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published 14 July 2015

As the world begins to absorb the implications of the nuclear accord struck between Iran and six world powers led by the United States, Israel predictably emerged as one of the deal's swiftest and harshest critics. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday said it was "a bad mistake of historic proportions" and "a sure path to nuclear weapons."

But it is also true that Israel could be among the countries that benefit most from the deal, given that an Iran deprived of nuclear weapons is clearly in Israel's direct national security interests. That is the case made by Jeffrey Goldberg at The Atlantic, in a piece that is otherwise pretty pessimistic that the accord will perpetuate a "virtuous cycle" in which Iran's liberal reformers gain more power and rein in the theocratic regime's aggressive posture:

One country that I think could conceivably — conceivably — benefit from this deal is Israel. It will face acute conventional challenges from Hezbollah, Iran's Lebanese proxy, but Hezbollah will be operating, for the time being at least, without the protection of an Iranian nuclear umbrella. If the plausible case can be made that this deal actually pushes Iran further away from the nuclear threshold — and we’ll have time, over the next 60 days, to test this case — then Israel will be better off with this deal than it would be without it. [The Atlantic]