As the titanic battle over the members of the Judicial Appointments Committee raged this week in the Knesset – effectively the decisive stage in the war defending Israeli democracy – intense talks continued over the fate of the Iranian nuclear project. According to Israeli intelligence, the United States and Iran are close to formulating new understandings after five years of almost total disconnect.
According to the understandings, Iran will freeze its high-level enrichment of uranium, just before a breakthrough that will give it sufficient fissile material to manufacture one nuclear bomb (and within half a year, seven bombs). In exchange, the United States will free up Iranian assets frozen in foreign banks to the tune of about $20 billion.
Israel is watching the developments from the side, almost unable to exert influence. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did voice a short objection this week to the compromise that’s shaping up; but in practice, despite the bombastic declarations heard frequently from Israel, new understandings will reduce the likelihood that the Israeli threat to mount an independent attack on the nuclear sites will be actualized.
A uranium enrichment facility at Natanz in 2019.Credit: HO / Atomic Energy Organization
Besides, many of the experts in the security establishment support the new understandings and view them as the least of the evils. Some of the leading figures in the professional cadre, including former director of Military Intelligence, Maj. Gen. Tamir Hayman and his successor, Maj. Gen. Aharon Haliva, were also against the Israeli move in 2018 that pushed U.S. President Donald Trump to withdraw from the nuclear agreement that had been signed three years earlier.
Israeli officials believe U.S. will avoid calling new Iran understandings an ‘agreement’
Why Israel’s intel on Iran changed so drastically
Brig. Gen. Oren Setter closely followed the twists and turns of the Iranian affair for almost two decades. Setter, who last month completed three years as head of the Strategic Division in the Israel Defense Forces’ General Staff and almost 30 years of service in the IDF, held key positions in the Strategy Directorate, Military Intelligence, the Directorate of Defense Research and Development and other intelligence bodies. He is a graduate of the army’s Talpiot Program, holds a PhD in operations research and was awarded the Israel Security Prize.
He wrote his doctoral dissertation at Tel Aviv University but also spent time at Harvard, where he researched the nuclear issue. Almost all his service was performed in the shadows. His interview this week with Haaretz is the second interview he’s ever given to the media, and the first in which his full name is given and his photograph published.
Existential threat
Like his colleagues in the intelligence community, Setter is well aware of the progress between Washington and Tehran, but recommends it be viewed in proportion. “What needs to be understood is that the contacts that are currently being talked about are a tactical matter,” he says. “Neither side is ripe for something bigger, in any direction. As things look, Iran is recoiling from crossing the threshold and progressing to producing uranium at the level of military enrichment, 90 percent. And the United States, for its part, does not want to use military force and is not ripe to enter negotiations on a new agreement.
“There is a kind of physics of negotiations underway here,” Setter continues. “It requires the articulation of a conception and afterward a negotiating process that could last two years or so. The present administration doesn’t have that time at the moment, ahead of the presidential election in November 2024. Working out understandings will also improve the communications channel between the sides. That’s needed in case of a future miscalculation between them.
“Overall,” he adds, “the question now is how to gain time, stabilize the highly sensitive situation that prevails and bring about optimal conditions ahead of a future discussion on a better solution. To examine how to minimize the danger of crossing the threshold and, contrariwise, preserve levers for negotiations down the line. It’s a narrow path to navigate. The Americans tend to aspire to achieve slightly more agreements at the price of slightly less pressure. Israel relies more on deterrence.”
According to Setter, “Most of the countries that have gone nuclear worked in parallel to obtain fissile material and develop a weapon system. The Iranians are an anomaly. In 2003, they froze the weapons program over the American invasion of Iraq. Since then they have been moving ahead mainly on the uranium enrichment track. The best image I’ve been able to come up with is this: Imagine a climbing expedition on Everest. Ninety percent of the effort is invested in reaching the summit. But then you need to go back down. That takes time, there’s more work, but in the big picture you will reach the destination. There is no substantive question there.”
“We no longer have a safety distance of a year from breakthrough to going nuclear,” he says, such as existed after the signing of the agreement.
“Iran is two weeks from breakthrough, one step away from arriving at 90 percent enriched uranium, a sufficient amount for a bomb. But confusion exists between conquering the summit and completing the journey. In order to descend from the mountain properly – in other words, to transform the bomb into a weapon and complete its adaptation to a nuclear warhead for a missile – about two more years are needed.”
The U.S. chief of staff, Gen. Mark Milley, said recently that the Iranians might opt for an abbreviated track to develop a weapon, such as manufacturing a “dirty bomb.” Setter doesn’t see that as highly-probable. “Milley hinted that it’s possible to do it a lot less orderly and less safely. From our experience with Iran, they mostly do things the way they should be done. I’m not sure that they will be in a terrible hurry to complete the development of a weapon.”
Preventing weapon development is far more complicated, he says. “The part that’s easier to supervise, through the International Atomic Energy Commission, is the fissile material. That’s measurable and it’s the heart of the agreement. There is no orderly supervisory mechanism over the development of a weapon. The facilities are smaller and it’s easy to conceal them. In enrichment, Iran progressed by degrees. In recent years – more centrifuges, faster and more advanced accumulation of uranium enriched to 20 percent and then to 60 percent.
“The fact that they didn’t take the final step – enrichment to 90 percent – wasn’t due to lack of ability. Refraining from that is a strong indication that they understand that this is a serious crossing of a threshold, which will exact steep prices. It will be a step everyone will assert unequivocally: We are moving to weapons development. The response – global, economic and perhaps also military – will be different. On the other hand, they are using this as an effective threat. It’s not by chance that the international community is recoiling from intensifying the sanctions, or that the IAEA is not referring the discussion of their violations, the so-called ‘open files,’ to the UN Security Council. It’s a mutual deterrent balance.”
In the short term, Setter avers, the world “will have to clarify what the most effective way is to deter Iran from a breakthrough. In the long term, the question is how to keep them significantly distant from the summit. Our situation analysis is very close to that of the United States and European countries. The disparity in approaches lies not in the analysis but on the question of how to distance them from the goal.”
Perhaps, Setter says, there is something to the American way of thinking, expressed by President Theodore Roosevelt when he spoke of the need to walk softly and carry a big stick. “Part of formulating the strategy is understanding the motives of the other sides. On the Iranian side, there is a deep feeling that when the Americans withdrew from the agreement, they were tricked. The previous agreement did not protect them at all from an American withdrawal. There is a deep Iranian feeling that that wasn’t fair. From their point of view, they fulfilled the terms of the agreement and were shafted. Their dignity was affronted and therefore they will cope with tremendous economic difficulties and will not give in. That’s why the pressure on them didn’t work.
“In the past few years we’ve categorized the Iranian moves in the nuclear project as consolidation in the threshold region, which is below going nuclear. They not only stepped up enrichment, they scattered the centrifuges in better-protected sites. The goal is to create a more robust and immune infrastructure,” Setter says. Drawing closer to Russia also serves the Iranians, he notes. They may have received advanced air-defense systems in return for the drones they supplied to the Russians.
“They are taking steps that are intended to create a feeling that there is no point in attacking the nuclear sites, in part because they shortened the duration of subsequent rehabilitation even after aerial bombing.”
Still, in the past two years Israel renewed its military preparations for an attack in Iran, and is making sure to publicize them at every opportunity. Setter reiterates the accepted view in the army that maintaining a credible military threat could in itself act as an incentive for Iran to enter into serious negotiations after the U.S. election. “It needs to be clear to them that Israeli intelligence is following from close-up and that military capabilities to attack Iran exist.”
Do you think a military attack is a ‘type of solution?’
“Yes. You put it well: ‘A type of solution’ – certainly not in the Syrian and Iraqi sense of total annihilation, when a lone Israeli attack destroyed a lone reactor, which was built using a plan from abroad. The Iranian program includes more facilities and is based on local capabilities. Physically, they will be able to rehabilitate from everything. But the price of an intensive military confrontation is very steep, and they know that we can act again.”
What is the degree of Israeli influence on the U.S. position on Iran?
“My angle is a partial one. There are smaller forums in which I did not take part. But my feeling, over the years, was that they were listening to us. They have an appreciation of our professional understanding, along with the knowledge that sometimes we do things that they are less pleased with. There is a great deal of openness to listen, coupled with skepticism. The record of Israeli recommendations is mixed, including the recommendation to withdraw from the agreement. A few times the Americans felt that we had not evaluated Iran’s response correctly, and the U.S.’s situation did not improve in the wake of such recommendations.”
The Strategic Division in the General Staff, established by former Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi, where Setter operated, devoted part of its activity to formulating recommendations for long-term Israeli strategy against Iran. In Iran, Setter says, there is “very deep enmity toward Israel. Even a certain dimension of antisemitism. It combines nationalist and religious layers and a Shiite perception of defending the downtrodden, together with Iranian recoil from the West. And there are many historical accounts, from the 1970s down to today.
Open gallery view
“Their approach,” he continues, “is also manifested in regional activity and in the upgrading of their missile system. There is high scientific-technological capability, along with a dramatic development in conventional abilities – missiles, cruise missiles and drones. The supply of Iranian drones to Russia would have sounded fantastical to us 20 years ago. They have very advanced drone capabilities, from their own development and also from copying. These things interconnect: the missiles allow them better protection for the nuclear project, alongside an offensive threat against us via proxy forces, terrorism and cyber.
“In recent months there has been an Iranian attempt to undermine the regional alliance against them. They are working for rapprochement with the Sunni Arab countries and to reduce hostility toward them, partly in response to the Abraham Accords. Not one country in the region changed its basic opinion on Iran. The Sunni-Shiite rift exists. But the war in Yemen exacted a steep price from the Gulf states, and they are trying to abate tensions. Everyone is talking with everyone. There are a lot more hues in the Middle East now. Contrariwise, the Iranian threat to us has become broader, multidimensional. If the regime there does not fall, they will be our enemies for the coming decades.”
Is there a future existential threat to Israel here?
“I see a threat of that sort in them, because Israel’s existence very much occupies the regime, and not in a positive sense. They are not a crazy state, nor are they a completely rational state. Most of the time the decision-making process was very orderly, after many deliberations and cost-benefit analyses. The advantage is that Iran is not North Korea. The leader consults, is aware of feelings among the people, of reactions in the international community. One can work in the face of that. But you have to step into their shoes, to understand how they see the world.”
Setter occasionally irked his superiors over the last few years, by insisting on presenting independent professional positions and forecasts. But now, when he’s asked whether the renewed negotiations between the United States and Iran spell the final collapse of the Israeli position that the nuclear agreement must be abandoned, he replies cautiously, as one who has yet to completely doff his uniform.
The bottom line, Setter says, “We are not at a good point today. Looking back on 2018, not everything is black and white. Underlying the American decision to withdraw [from the agreement] was a desire to bring massive pressure on Iran so that it would be possible to limit its nuclear project more significantly than in the 2015 agreement, which did indeed have flaws, such as the absence of an inbuilt clause for extending the agreement beyond 2031. At that stage, according to the agreement, Iran receives legitimization for the project with very few restrictions. That is a fundamental flaw.
“But the rest of the world wasn’t with us and with Trump, when the president decided to withdraw from the agreement. As such, we lost a cardinal element – international unity against Iran – which was a significant achievement in 2015. Russia and China supported the agreement, and Iran became more flexible. After 2018, when the Americans went back to putting economic pressure on Iran, I thought that was more likely to bring about stubbornness than concessions. On the other hand, I was wrong enough times in my evaluations to know that the second scenario was also possible.”
Over the past three years, in response to Iran’s violations of the agreement (which from Tehran’s point of view were a response to the U.S. withdrawal), a series of sabotage acts against Iranian nuclear sites have been attributed to Israel. The Americans claimed – and this also resonated in IDF Military Intelligence – that this approach was actually spurring the Iranians to accelerate their nuclear program. Here, too, Setter says, somewhat diplomatically, that “Iran exploited some of the attacks on its soil to advance the program. The heart of the matter is that they did so without paying the full price vis-à-vis the international community. The world developed an understanding towards Iran, and they exploited this in a very sophisticated way.”
“From my angle, as a professional, things were always presented in full to the decision-makers. In 2015, I presented the nuclear agreement to the security cabinet for almost two hours. From my experience, all told, the discussion was very substantive. I completely accept that the political decision-makers sometimes have information that we don’t, for example during the Abraham Accords negotiations, we didn’t understand the full picture. There is also a political understanding of how the public sees things.
“As a young officer in the Directorate of Defense Research and Development, I engaged in operations research on the different systems for intercepting rockets. At the time, there was a conception in the army that there was no need to invest in those systems: people would go down to the bomb shelters in any case. The rockets weren’t accurate and were barely lethal. It would be better to invest in offense. I remember how the defense minister at the time, Amir Peretz, said that the public needs something between itself and the threat. You don’t need something hermetic, but feeling like ducks in a shooting gallery was intolerable. Peretz was right. In the end, Iron Dome is a phenomenal success.”
Setter does not accept the analysis that has been voiced frequently in Israel over the past few months, to the effect that we are now witnessing a process in which the United States is pulling out of the Middle East. “There is no such event,” he says. “In the American order of priorities, Russia is now an acute threat to security, and China is a threatening long-term competitor. If I were in their shoes, those would be my priorities, too. They are not on the way out. They understand that if they leave the region to its own devices, that will bounce back to affect them. I told them more than once: ‘The Middle East is the opposite of Las Vegas – what happens here doesn’t stay here.’
“They need to preserve capabilities and forces in the region. It’s true that they removed military equipment from emergency depots in Israel. There’s a war on now in Ukraine, in the heart of Europe.
The order of priorities has changed. But the Americans will not leave. I am convinced of that. They perceive a presence here as an important interest: because of Israel, because of the threat from Iran and from ISIS, because of their relations with Gulf states.”
The General Staff Strategic Division coordinated the liaison with CENTCOM, the U.S. military’s Central Command, which two years ago became the responsible body for working with the IDF. In Setter’s view, “That is a dramatic change in the level of cooperation. CENTCOM, more than European Command with which we worked previously, is a natural partner, both because of the geographical division and because the Middle East is at the center of their mission. The joint air defense exercise we conducted with them recently was the most extensive ever.”
The Abraham Accords, he believes, increased the potential for military cooperation with the Gulf states, including those with which Israel doesn’t yet have diplomatic relations with. “We need to approach this cautiously and gradually.
Things take time. There won’t be a regional defense pact here, or NATO. But joint coordination between the air defense systems can serve everyone. CENTCOM is critical for that. Things are moving ahead, in part because it’s an American interest.”
In recent years, Setter, as IDF representative, took part in the talks on setting the maritime border with Lebanon. Like the entire security community, he too presented a professional opinion that the agreement reached by the previous government was reasonable under the circumstances.
“The very fact that an agreement was signed with an enemy country is not trivial,” he says. “The agreement doesn’t restrain Hezbollah’s military activity, but it burrows deep under its ideology of struggle. In the end, the Lebanese state signed a binding agreement with Israel. If in the end a rig is established in the Lebanese gas field, that will be a restraining element. They need quiet at sea, so they will be able to drill with the aid of an international consortium. That is critical for Lebanon, which is facing economic collapse.”
