Dan Meridor will leave his present position in several weeks and return to the status of the citizen observing from the sidelines. It will be a forced farewell for the minister of intelligence and atomic energy from the centers of decision-making and the most exclusive security forums, after years dedicated mostly to the struggle to halt the Iranian nuclear program. Meridor devoted many hundreds of hours to this issue over the last four years, but the fact is, it did not help him in the primaries; the members of the Likud Central Committee ranked him in an unrealistic place in their list, and sent him home. Meridor was punished by the party that turned to the extreme Right, which ejected him from their midst because of his political moderation and his struggle to retain the independence of the Supreme Court.

The only person who could give him a position in the government as external minister is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but Netanyahu has his own coalition trials and tribulations. Thus, even Meridor’s secret hopes to retain his place are dissipating.

At the age of 66, Meridor is realistic and sober. He has long since abandoned his one-time dream to head the Likud and run for the prime minister’s job. These aspirations suited the period of 20 years ago. Then he was still one of the “Likud princes” — together with Benny Begin and Michael Eitan, who were also sent packing with Meridor that same night when the primary results were publicized. Meridor was a natural to climb the party-hierarchy ladder, until he reached the spot where he halted. He lacked the requisite “killing instinct” to advance further. The fact that he was one of the first in the national camp to approve of the two-state solution to end the conflict with the Palestinians did not help him reach the top of the Likud pyramid.

This week, a moment before he takes his farewells from the government, I asked Meridor if he feels that his return to politics five years ago was worthwhile. Does he feel that he was able to wield influence, I asked. His answer was long and complex, but my impression was that he felt mainly positive about his decision.