Netanyahu banks on escalation with Iran
The Israeli prime minister expects political windfall from revealing "an open secret" about Iran’s past nuclear program.
This week US President Donald Trump will decide whether the United States will stay or go with regard to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as the Iran nuclear deal.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with an eye on Trump’s May 12 decision deadline, offered his own political trifecta April 30, all hedged toward the prospect of escalation with Iran.
First, Israeli F-15 fighter jets destroyed a cache of 200 Iranian-origin missiles in Syria, killing perhaps dozens of Iranians in the process. Second, the Knesset approved a proposal authorizing the prime minister and defense minister to declare war under extreme circumstances. And third, Netanyahu announced an intelligence windfall of Iranian nuclear documents, procured by Mossad operatives in Iran, which provide further detail of Iran’s clandestine nuclear program prior to the JCPOA.
“The question of why it was urgent for Netanyahu to push forward right now a law that grants him great power and simultaneously weakens the diplomatic-security Cabinet in a consequential decision to declare war was not subject to an in-depth or serious public discussion,” Mazal Mualem reports. “Naturally, it was overshadowed by the drama of the speech Netanyahu delivered.”
