An Israeli Researcher Speaks on the Negotiations with Iran, as Tehran Plays for Time

Many in Israel’s security establishment are keenly aware that Iran is close — perhaps only months or even weeks away — from enriching enough uranium just below the level needed to make a half-dozen nuclear bombs. But they also believe that should Israel decide to strike Iran’s nuclear program, American collaboration will be essential. For in order to destroy the underground nuclear facilities at Natanz, and the nuclear facilities built inside a mountain at Fordow, the Israeli Air Force would need the Americans to supply them with the 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs that Israel does not now possess, and with the B-2 bombers able to carry them. There is also a need both for American intelligence, and American help in defending Israel against retaliatory strikes from Iran.

But Washington is deep in negotiations with Iran, and apparently Trump thinks the talks so far have been “good.” He believes that they may lead to an agreement that would obviate the need for an Israeli attack. It could happen. Iran, after all, is in desperate straits economically, and would dearly love to have American sanctions lifted. But it also could be that Iran is simply going to drag out the negotiations as long as they can, while they continue not just to enrich uranium to weapons-grade, but to build the bombs, and create a fait accompli, Tehran believes, that will make the Israelis leery of trying to attack a nuclear Iran.

Beni Sabti is an Israeli researcher and analyst specializing in Iran. He has little faith in the negotiations between Washington and Iran leading anywhere, but also does not think that Iran’s threats to destroy the Jewish state if it dares to attack Iran need be taken seriously; they are, he says, part of Iran’s continual war of words directed at the Zionist enemy. More on Sabti’s views can be found here: “Iran isn’t in a place to handle an Israeli strike due to internal struggles, expert says,” by Maya Cohen, Jerusalem Post, May 29, 2025:

The current negotiations between Iran and the US are simply a game for the Islamic Republic, an expert revealed to Maariv.

Beni Sabti, a senior researcher on Iranian affairs at the Institute for National Security Studies, argued that the recent spike in rhetoric surrounding Iran’s nuclear program is less about an imminent war and more about political maneuvering by both Iran and its adversaries.

In the wake of reports suggesting Israeli readiness to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities independently, and following a reported ultimatum from US President Donald Trump to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Sabti offered a more grounded interpretation.

“This isn’t a new crisis – it’s a familiar Iranian chess game,” Sabti told Maariv. “What many see as dangerous threats are often bluffs, ones even the Iranian public doesn’t take seriously.”

Regarding ongoing nuclear negotiations between the US and Iran, Sabti predicted more delay tactics from Tehran:“The Iranians will likely propose so-called compromises just to push back deadlines. That’s how they operate. They hold onto cards and play them when the timing suits them.”

According to Sabti, Iran still has room to maneuver diplomatically.

“There’s still space to compromise – on uranium enrichment levels, international inspections, even centrifuge operations – if Iran chooses to do so.”

Recent Israeli military actions, particularly in Yemen, have reignited debate over whether Jerusalem could act independently against Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. Sabti was unequivocal: “Israel has the operational capability. Militarily and physically, there is no barrier to such an action.”…

I am not sure what to make of Sabti’s remark. Does the IAF have MOPs (Massive Ordnance Penetrators) large enough to destroy the nuclear facilities at Natanz and Fordow? Have the Americans perhaps already delivered those bombs to Israel? Or do the Israelis have another way to destroy those facilities? I’d like to know more, but for obvious reasons, the Israelis are not going to make that information public.

Beyond the geopolitical theater, Sabti pointed to deepening unrest within Iran. “There’s no bread, no electricity. The situation is deteriorating quickly. Strikes are spreading—something we haven’t seen in years.”

Economically, Iran is in a state of collapse. More than one-third of the population lives below the poverty line. Unemployment is high. The rial has gone from 70 to the dollar in 1979, when the Khomeini regime installed itself, to the phantasmagoric rate of 860,000 to the dollar today. Iran is forced to sell its oil at below-market prices, to a handful of hard-bargaining customers — above all, to China. The tens of billions of dollars Iran spent in propping up Assad in Syria has gone up in smoke. The billions in weapons it supplied to Hezbollah in Lebanon have also disappeared. The IDF has destroyed 80% of Hezbollah’s store of rockets and missiles, and 80-90% of the weapons left in Syria after the regime was overturned and Bashar Assad fled to Moscow. And there are more protests in Iran, over hijabs and mismanagement of the economy and the sums spent on weapons for proxies and for Iran itself. Iranians, quite reasonably, want Iranian money spent on Iran. Among the chants of anti-regime demonstrators there is, tellingly, this: “No, no, to Palestine. Everything for Iran.”

It’s hard to know what to think, whom most to trust on how best to stop Iran’s nuclear project. I feel like repeating the phrase that the Dukes of Mantua took as their sibylline motto: Forse che sí, forse che no. Maybe yes, and maybe no. Sabti is more hopeful about the outcome of the negotiations than almost all of his Israeli colleagues, and much closer to the view expressed by Trump. He seems to think that Iran will accept an agreement that will, at the very least, end further enrichment by Iran of uranium up to just-below weapons grade, though likely will leave the regime with the store of uranium it has already enriched to that level. He trusts that whatever deal is made is one Israel can accept.

I present Sabti’s views not to endorse them, because many others in Israel are not nearly as sanguine about the negotiations, and what they see as Trump’s misguided effort to hold Israel back from an attack that they believe should come quickly, when Iran is at its most vulnerable, before Tehran can rebuild its missile defense system that Israel destroyed on October 26. His views are reprinted here for the sake, that is, of balance, and not out of agreement.