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Short Summary
Main recommendation: Israel should dismantle Iran's enrichment capability, specifically the two bunkers and their advanced centrifuges, and should be prepared to act militarily alone if necessary, rather than relying on superpower-led diplomacy. Yossi Cohen argues that the 2015 nuclear agreement has failed because it limited Iran's willingness to build a bomb but not its physical capability to enrich uranium, which can be dismantled only through complete removal of that infrastructure.
Key Points
- Cohen says Iran is enriching uranium today in two bunkers using more advanced centrifuges than before, and that it can enrich to whatever level it chooses.
- He argues that intelligence operations, such as killing scientists or damaging facilities, have slowed but not stopped Iran's program, because other scientists keep working and infrastructure can be rebuilt.
- He says Israel should be able to act alone, citing past precedents: strikes on Iraq's nuclear program and on a Syrian facility built with North Korean help.
- The host raises criticism from several former Mossad chiefs that persuading Trump to leave the nuclear deal was a blunder; Cohen does not endorse this characterization, instead saying the Israeli system has diverse views and that his own position was always to push for dismantling Iran's capabilities within negotiations.
- He describes the 2015 agreement's time limit as a core flaw, since the enrichment capability it allowed could regenerate.
- He is skeptical that talks will produce a lasting deal, citing a more hardline Iranian leadership than under Rouhani; when asked if there is 'motion without movement,' he responds that he sees 'motion with a lot of emotion.'
Details Worth Noting
- Concrete instructions: The speaker's actionable recommendations are to dismantle Iran's two enrichment bunkers and the enrichment capability entirely in any new agreement; to prepare Israel to act militarily on its own against Iran's program if diplomacy fails; and to coordinate with the United States so that both countries jointly commit to never letting Iran acquire nuclear weapons, as President Biden has declared. No step-by-step operational instructions were given.
- Cohen reports that he negotiated with the P5+1 under President Obama, with counterparts including Susan Rice and Wendy Sherman, and that he argued then for near-complete shutdown of the two bunkers.
- He says the 2015 agreement's flaw was its time limit, and that infrastructure, unlike individual scientists, can be improved over time, specifically at Natanz and Fordow.
- He says the so-called nuclear archive operation was aimed at proving Iran was not coming clean and had better capabilities than the world and Israel knew, which was the main justification for pushing to leave the agreement.
- He says current Israeli leadership, including the prime minister and national security adviser Dr. Ram Eytan (a former subordinate of his), are up to date on Iranian developments and likely to follow a similar strategy of preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
- He states he is not in politics now and is focused on business, specifically translating Zionism into economic assets.
- On the NSO question about cyber-offensive products, Cohen declined to comment, saying the matter is handled by the appropriate offices.
Bottom Line
Cohen's view is that diplomacy is unlikely to resolve the problem unless Iran's enrichment infrastructure is eliminated, and that Israel should be ready to act militarily if it is not.
