US officials are worried that Israel could decide to carry out strikes on Iran’s nuclear program without much warning, The New York Times reported on Wednesday.
The report said that US intelligence believes Israel could make the preparations to carry out an attack in as little as seven hours, which would leave the Americans little time to attempt to pressure Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to change his mind.
The US intelligence officials reportedly doubt the efficacy of a unilateral strike by Israel, and Israeli officials are said to believe that the US would have no choice other than to assist, if Tehran were to strike back.
Israeli officials have told Washington that a strike could be carried out even if a nuclear agreement is reached between the US and Iran, the report said.
US President Donald Trump still wants to make a deal with the Iranians, the report confirmed.
The desire comes despite American and Iranian negotiators being at apparent loggerheads over the issue of uranium enrichment, with US officials insisting on its total elimination in Iran, while the Islamic Republic has called it a red line.
During his first term, Trump ripped up a 2015 deal that capped Iran’s nuclear enrichment at 3.67 percent, and in recent years Tehran has begun to produce material to near-weapons grade levels.
Iran, which avowedly seeks Israel’s destruction, has consistently denied seeking to acquire nuclear weapons. However, it has been enriching uranium to levels that have no peaceful application, has obstructed international inspectors from checking its nuclear facilities and expanded its ballistic missile capabilities, and its officials have increasingly warned that they could pursue the bomb.
In an attempt to keep the negotiations alive, US envoy Steve Witkoff and mediating country Oman are “discussing creative options,” according to the Times report, including a joint venture between Iran, Saudi Arabia, and several other Arab countries, with some US involvement, to produce nuclear fuel, with the actual location of the enrichment as-yet undetermined.
Witkoff has also dropped his objections to an interim understanding laying out principles for a deal, the report said, with the Trump administration hoping that such a declaration would help hold off an Israeli strike.
Trump said Sunday that “something good” could be coming with respect to the talks in the “next two days.”
Israel is said to be suspicious of any interim deal that would allow Iran to maintain its facilities for months or years with the negotiations ongoing.
Wednesday’s report came amid a flurry of accounts of heated disagreements between Trump and Netanyahu on Iran’s nuclear program.
The Times corroborated the reported tension, citing interviews with officials in the US, Europe, and Israel who have been involved in the debate between the two governments.
After Netanyahu’s meeting with Trump last month — when the US president, with the Israeli leader alongside him, made the shock announcement that nuclear talks with Iran would begin — the premier reportedly ordered national security officials to continue their plans for a strike on Iran, including for a potential operation without US support.
Since then, Israel has been communicating to the US that it might strike on its own even if a deal is reached, according to the report.
In a subsequent phone call between the two leaders, Netanyahu did not deny ordering the preparations, and argued to Trump that Israel had a limited window to strike, the Times said.
Last Friday, Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and Mossad chief David Barnea met with Witkoff in Rome, on the sidelines of the US-Iran talks. On Monday, they traveled to Washington to meet with CIA Director John Ratcliffe.
Dermer met with Witkoff again on Tuesday, the report confirmed, though the topic of that meeting wasn’t clear, and Hebrew media reports connected the meeting, which Barnea was also reportedly to attend, to efforts to reach a hostage deal with the Hamas terror group.