In an interview with David Ignatius of The Washington Post, Israeli minister of intelligence Yuval Steinitz explained the Israeli government’s reservations over the emerging nuclear deal with Iran.

One element of Steinitz’ opposition is that the current deal being discussed would not give the West a chance to respond if Iran decided to sneak to a nuclear breakout.

Steinitz didn’t dispute the U.S. argument that what matters is a package that includes the number and performance levels of the permitted centrifuges, the extent of dismantlement of non-permitted centrifuges and the size of Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium. “Breakout time is an equation with four variables,” he said.

“The temptation [for Iran] is not now but in two or three or four years, when the West is preoccupied with other crises,” he added. Steinitz said that if Iran chose to “sneak out” at such a moment, it would take the United States and its allies months to determine the pact had been violated, and another six months to form a coalition for sanctions or other decisive action. By then, it might be too late.

Steinitz also disagreed with the administration’s apparent premise that a deal only needs to be effective until a new generation of leaders arises in Iran.

“I understand the logic, but I disagree,” Steinitz said. What the United States is saying to Iran, in effect, is “if you agree to freeze for 10 years, that’s enough for us.” But that won’t work for Israel. “To believe that in the next decade there will be a democratic change in leadership and that Iran won’t threaten the U.S. or Israel anymore, I think this is too speculative.”

Ignatius, who proclaims himself a supporter of the ongoing P5+1 nuclear negotiations with Iran, nonetheless found Steinitz’s objections persuasive enough that he concluded that proponents of nuclear diplomacy with Iran “need to be able to answer Steinitz’s critique.”

[Photo: The Israel Project / Flickr ]