With their common cultural and historical heritage, and their specific geographical position, Iran and Israel could have been best friends and allies, but today they stand against one another as biggest foes where their unprecedented enmity has impacted the whole region.
Today, the extensive and costly Iranian nuclear program that has brought nothing for Iranians but poverty, international isolation and debilitating sanctions, has turned into a threat to the national security of not only Iranians, but the whole world.
Millions of Iranians, who have been held hostage to and enslaved by the Shiite system and the totalitarian ideological regime of the Islamic Republic, should witness the ignorance of an extremist governance that thinks of nothing but to save its own dogmatic and incompetence existence.
While the Iranian regime imagined that the introduction of a new generation of centrifuges and speeding up of its billion-dollar nuclear program would lead the anxious international community to persuading the US to return to 2015 nuclear agreement, the recent sabotage at the Natanz nuclear site demonstrates the futility of their antics.
Of course, Israel has not officially accepted the responsibility of the attack against Natanz, but it is common knowledge that Israel considers Tehran’s nuclear program a threat against its national security and has repeatedly said that it would do all in its power to counter it.
Iranian officials has been trying to limit the duration of the country’s commitment to the nuclear agreement, but their provocative actions would only serve to shrink the fruitfulness of the recent round of negotiations in Vienna.
Iran’s tools for confronting the West in their mutual negotiations were the violation of the terms of the 2015 nuclear agreement by an increase in the level of enrichment. The two explosions and the subsequent fire at the Natanz site, however, proved the futility of their strategy.
Tehran’s provocations pushed the frontiers of the differences between Iran and Israel from proxy wars to a face-to-face confrontation.
Israel’s Helios Ray merchant ship was attacked on February 26 last year by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. At the time, Israeli defense officials said that the attack was carried out by anti-gunship missiles and installation of mines to the body of the Helios.
On Sunday, similar to an incident last March, there was a power cut at the Natanz site followed by an extensive fire in the installations.
Israel retaliated to the Helios incident by a simultaneous mine attack against Iran’s Saviz ship in the Red Sea while the 4+1 negotiations were taking place in Vienna.
Israelis consider Iran a threat to their country and their existence. Iranian officials have repeatedly and directly threatened Israel’s destruction and annihilation.
On the other side, Iranians have incurred a great loss because of the regime’s nuclear program and, as a result, refuse to support its failed policies.
With no clear account given by the Iranian government on the financial costs of the program, nor any explanations on the reasons for further development of the enrichment program above 20%, as well as the wisdom behind the acquisition of advanced centrifuges, Iranians do not have a clear picture of the regime’s goal behind the huge expenses spent on the nuclear program.
The current status of Iran’s nuclear program is in stark contrast to Tehran’s claim of its “peaceful” nature and has caused deep concern in the region and the world at large.
Likewise, no clear explanations have been given regarding the assassination in November 2020 of Mr. Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, Iran’s senior official in the country’s nuclear program. There is no official account on the circumstances surrounding his assassination, the weapon used in the attack, or indeed, what his role in the nuclear military program was.
Accordingly, no explanation has been given by Iranian experts on whether the Sunday explosion at Natanz was the result of a cyberattack or the use of other means.
If the regime is not prepared to share such basic information with the public, how can Iranians judge the current events in their country?
The fact that Iranians are so indifferent to recent events demonstrates a much deeper abyss between the regime and the West; the regime’s nuclear program has no defenders within the country and the government’s negotiations with the West draw no public interest.
What should now come to the attention of Iranians is the existence of a threat against their national security and the fact that any confrontation with Israel and its ally, the United States, could have irreversible consequences for Iran, Iranians and the whole region.
The arrival of the new US Secretary of Defense to the scene, heralds the possibility of new decisions on the Iranian regime and its nuclear program. Negotiations with the new US administration and the secret talks with them in the hope of maneuvering around Israel and countries of the region has proved a mere fantasy.
It may be that US negotiators are Iranian Foreign Minister, Mr. Zarif’s old friends, or a few Iranian-American citizens, who have been consulted here and there, try to aggrandize their influence in the US government, but the fact of the matter reveals a different picture.
The fact of the matter is that Mr. Biden ought to have the nod of the Congress in order to lift the sanctions against Iran. This requires Tehran to come back to the conditions envisaged in the 2015 nuclear agreement and further negotiate over its missile program and its interventionist policies in the region. On the other side of the negotiating table are Israel and regional countries that prevent the US to come back to the nuclear program without putting in place certain conditions and limitations on Iran.
As such, should Iran continue to insist on its position, the Vienna round will prove void and leave Iran and Israel to directly to settle their differences.
