Former Israeli Defense Force chief of Defense Intelligence, retired Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin, says the US and its negotiating partners erred by offering Iran a small confidence-building deal this year instead of a comprehensive agreement trading sanctions relief for tough curbs on Iran’s nuclear program.

Speaking Tuesday, April 30 before a convention of the Anti-Defamation League, a US organization that fights discrimination against minorities, Yadlin, who now directs a think tank at Tel Aviv University, also said Iran had broken through two of Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu’s “red lines” and that it was wiser not to announce such limits.

Yadlin said he thought that after the re-election of President Barack Obama last November, “we would get big-for-big instead of small-for-small,” as reported by Akiva Eldar.

Instead of a broad offer, however, the US and its negotiating partners said they would lift sanctions on Iranian use of precious metals to settle its oil exports. In return, Iran was asked to suspend operation of its underground enrichment site at Fordow and to stop enriching uranium to 20% U-235. Iran has so far refused the smaller deal in two rounds of talks in Almaty, Kazakhstan.