Mossad Director David Barnea and Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer were seemingly unable to talk down US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff from the direction he is taking in the Iran nuclear negotiations during a secret meeting on Friday in Paris, The Jerusalem Post has learned.
Israel had been considering trying to “intercept” Witkoff on his way to the second round of Iran nuclear talks in Rome, which took place on Saturday. Dermer is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s closest adviser, and Barnea has been seen as a secret weapon due to the deep respect the previous and current US administrations have for the Mossad chief.
The Post understands that Barnea recently had very successful meetings with CIA Director John Ratcliffe in Israel, but Jerusalem recognized that Witkoff is the man of the hour, who the Jewish state would need to sway to impact negotiations.
In Israel, there has been deep concern that neither Witkoff nor US President Donald Trump completely understands the importance of the details regarding setting back Iran’s nuclear program in the area of uranium enrichment, including advanced centrifuges, as well as regarding ballistic missile systems, which could be used to deliver nuclear warheads.
Tehran’s optimistic reaction to the second round of talks, the US withholding certain details, the scheduling of a third round of talks for next week, and other details suggest Barnea and Dermer did not succeed, though Israel will hold out hope until a new mediocre deal is actually signed.
In the past, Barnea and his predecessors – Yossi Cohen, Tamir Pardo, Meir Dagan, and others – were sometimes used to sway top US officials by presenting exceptional new intelligence about the dangers presented by Iran’s nuclear program at key moments.
Barnea has a very strong relationship with Ratcliffe’s predecessor, Bill Burns, and was credited with convincing the then-CIA chief to take some tougher stands on key details in nuclear negotiations with Iran, which, in multiple situations, led to a breakdown in negotiations with the Islamic Republic.
Past negotiations for an Iran nuclear deal
In April 2021, former president Joe Biden’s administration was expected to potentially cut a quick, new nuclear deal with Iran and mainly ignored a wider Israeli delegation on the issue, but after Cohen personally met Biden in an unscheduled meeting (at a time when Biden was not meeting with Netanyahu), Washington surprised Tehran in negotiations, taking a hardline on Iran’s advanced centrifuges and other holes in the 2015 nuclear deal.
Negotiations fell through, ending the chance for a deal while relative moderate Hassan Rouhani was still Iran’s president, and with the election of his successor, hardliner Ebrahim Raisi, real negotiations were delayed into 2022.
Despite these past successes, Witkoff and Trump seem intent on cutting a new nuclear deal with Tehran, provided they can present it as better in some way than Obama’s 2015 deal, even if it falls far short of what Israel believes is necessary.
In lieu of a deal that essentially shuts down Tehran’s nuclear program, most Israeli officials prefer to exploit the current unique window of vulnerability to attack its nuclear facilities opened up by the Israel Air Force disabling Iran’s best anti-aircraft systems in October 2024 and the crushing of much of Hezbollah and Hamas’s power to retaliate against Israel for a strike on the Islamic Republic.