Israeli Team Heads to US to ‘Shape’ Final Iran Deal

After Failing to Kill Interim Deal, Netanyahu Looks to Engage

Months of angry fist-shaking from Israeli officials and a position of no diplomacy at any price failed miserably, and in the wake of the signing of the interim P5+1 deal with Iran, Prime Minister Netanyahu appears to have changed tactics.

Today, Netanyahu announced he is dispatching a team lead by his national security adviser Yossi Cohen to the US, and they are going to try to engage with the US in getting the terms of the final Iran deal more to Israel’s liking.

That’s a big shift after long-standing rejection of all diplomacy, and will inevitably raise questions of what the Israeli agenda is. Netanyahu said any permanent deal would have to dismantle “Iran’s military nuclear capability.”

But since Iran doesn’t have a military nuclear capability, that doesn’t mean much, and the concern is that the Israeli team is not so much there to engage in the negotiation process, but rather to try to make the P5+1 demands so onerous that Iran can’t possibly accept them.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.