They ARE...
While American President seem to want to talk their way with Iran?
The NY Times points out that the Israeli’s are taking covert actions to neutralise Iran’s military and nuclear weapon efforts in a serious take no prisoners effort….
In fact the Israeli actions have put a squeeze on the Iranian leaders who also have to deal with country that has severe economic problems that could lead to another effort to have people in the streets rise up against their rule…
It IS the hope of the Isreali’s and probably the Biden admin that the situation pushes Iran to come to the bargaining table and scrap it’s nuclear weapons ambitions….
In less than nine months, an assassin on a motorbike fatally shot an Al Qaeda commander given refuge in Tehran, Iran’s chief nuclear scientist was machine-gunned on a country road, and two separate, mysterious explosions rocked a key Iranian nuclear facility in the desert, striking the heart of the country’s efforts to enrich uranium.
The steady drumbeat of attacks, which intelligence officials said were carried out by Israel, highlighted the seeming ease with which Israeli intelligence was able to reach deep inside Iran’s borders and repeatedly strike its most heavily guarded targets, often with the help of turncoat Iranians.
The attacks, the latest wave in more than two decades of sabotage and assassinations, have exposed embarrassing security lapses and left Iran’s leaders looking over their shoulders as they pursue negotiations with the Biden administration aimed at restoring the 2015 nuclear agreement.
The recriminations have been caustic.
The head of Parliament’s strategic center said Iran had turned into a “haven for spies.” The former commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps called for an overhaul of the country’s security and intelligence apparatus. Lawmakers have demanded the resignation of top security and intelligence officials….
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Israel has been working to derail Iran’s nuclear program, which it considers a mortal threat, since it began. Israel is believed to have started assassinating key figures in the program in 2007, when a nuclear scientist at a uranium plant in Isfahan died in a mysterious gas leak…
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Iranian officials shifted to what they called “strategic patience” in the last year of the Trump administration, calculating that Israel sought to goad them into an open conflict that would eliminate the possibility of negotiations with a new Democratic administration…
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But any overt retaliation risks an overwhelming Israeli response.
“They are not in a hurry to start a war,” said Talal Atrissi, a political science professor at the Lebanese University in Beirut. “Retaliation means war.”…
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But as Iran faces a struggling economy, rampant Covid-19 infections and other problems of poor governance, the pressure is on to reach a new agreement soon to remove economic sanctions, said Ms. Vakil of Chatham House….
Update….
Seems the Irainan’s are NOW anxious to sit-down and talk about a nuclear weapons limiting deal….
Negotiators trying to get the U.S. and Tehran back into compliance with the Iran nuclear deal are making progress, according to officials, with some even saying the talks have reached a halfway point.
But the talks remain fragile and will not be completed in the current round of discussions; diplomats are set to take a break after Tuesday’s talks before gathering again next week. Specifically, officials are negotiating how to restore the original bargain of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal — curbing Iran’s nuclear program and preventing the regime from building a bomb, in return for sanctions lifting by the U.S.
This involves negotiating how Iran might dispose of its excess nuclear material or what to do with advanced centrifuges, machines that are used to enrich uranium gas. And they’re debating which sanctions the U.S. might unwind from the raft of penalties it imposed under the 2015 deal, as well as under the Trump administration.
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