Israel Says Giving Up Harming Iran’s Enrichment Program

Israeli actions against Iran will focus on 'other areas'

In statements that seem designed to update the anti-Iran narrative ahead of President Biden’s visit, Israeli officials are saying they have “given up” on their many, many attacks on Iran’s civilian uranium enrichment program.

The narrative is meant to suggest Israel isn’t going to keep assassinating people tangentially involved in enrichment, at least formally, and is meant to back claims that Iran already has enough uranium for a weapon, an almost certainly false allegation.

The report suggests that instead, Israel will go on to attack “other areas” related to the nuclear program. This is likely deliberately non-specific, allowing Israel to keep doing things to Iran and arguing that they’re meant to undermine Iran’s nuclear programs in some way or other.

If nothing else, this will probably be enough to keep Biden from making any issue of Israeli assassination programs during the nuclear talks, though Biden has been so dubious on the talks anyhow it likely wouldn’t have come up publicly.

The US has largely not commented on the killings in Iran, and seems comfortable with whatever Israel decides to do. That’s been a recurring policy that’s meant very little diplomacy between Iran and the US.

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.