Israeli Prime Minister Neftali Bennett to meet with US President Joe Biden at the White House
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett will visit the White House to meet with US President Joe Biden today.
Bennett and Biden’s discussion will focus on the Iranian nuclear program. The talks come as negotiations to revive the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal between Iran and Western powers have stalled due to continued Iranian uranium production.
An Iran-hawk, Bennett has said he will present Biden with a plan to curb Iran’s ambitions outside of the deal, which Israel has long opposed. The US and Israel have taken joint action on the issue before, most notably by covertly deploying the Stuxnet virus to damage Iranian nuclear centrifuges in 2010.
Bennett’s plan, however, will not likely make significant progress in ending Iran’s nuclear ambitions. The program is too far along to be stopped by targeted attacks due to its high interoperability and flexibility. The Israelis are aware of this—since Stuxnet, they have taken no directly-attributed action against Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
Given the lack of realistic alternatives, expect Biden to continue pushing for the reinstatement of the nuclear deal. His invitation to Bennett constitutes a threat of harsher measures towards Iran if negotiations on the deal do not resume.
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