screencap of i24NEWS English video

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with then-national security advisor Yosef “Yossi” Cohen, now director of Mossad.

TEL AVIV: Yosi Cohen, head of Mossad, is in Washington today to brief key figures in the Biden administration, armed with a “mountain” of the latest Israeli intelligence about Iran’s nuclear program and ballistic missiles.

The official reason for his visit is to say goodbye to the outgoing Trump administration and prepare for Israel’s work with the Biden Administration.

The head of the Mossad is expected to serve as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s main liaison with the new administration, because of his personal acquaintance with Biden and many of the new president’s senior officials developed while he was head of Israel’s National Security Council.

Cohen knows Biden personally and has met with him several times. He worked closely with then-Secretary of State John Kerry (now the presumptive climate change envoy) and then-National Security Adviser Susan Rice (presumptive domestic policy advisor). Perhaps most importantly, he knows Wendy Sherman, who led the talks with the Iranians and is the presumptive deputy Secretary of State. Sherman lobbied Jewish groups to accept the original Iranian agreement reached under Obama and knows the players on all sides. Cohen also knows William Burns, in line to become CIA director, who will clearly play a key role in supplying unbiased intelligence about the implications of any deal with Iran.

He is also well acquainted with his American counterpart Jake Sullivan, considered one of the architects of the nuclear deal under Obama. Sullivan is slated to serve as Biden’s National Security Adviser. Another acquaintance is Anthony Blinken, expected to serve as Secretary of State.

The Israelis are already worrying that the Biden administration may not be as hard-line as President Trump has been with the Iranians.

“The Iranians are masters of creating fake reality, and I think that the new administration is going to buy their lies,” Yossi Kuperwasser, former head of the research division in the Israeli Defense Forces’ military intelligence division and director general of the Israel Ministry of Strategic Affairs. “The Iranians are masters of creating fake reality and I think that the new administration is going to buy their lies ”

Amos Gilead, former chief of the IDF’s intelligence research and analysis division, told BD that every effort should be made to totally block Iran’s race to nuclear capability: “A country like Iran, with its ideology, should not reach the point where it can act with nuclear weapons.”

He told BD that going back to the existing Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreement with Iran would result in “some dozens” of nuclear devices in Iran hands within 10 years.

A new paper authored by Eldad Shavit and Sima Shine, senior researchers at the Israeli Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), argues that the Biden administration is likely to return to the JCPOA.

“Biden vehemently criticized Trump’s Iran policy. He has made clear that the United States plans to return to the JCPOA, which it left in 2018, and lift sanctions that were imposed on Iran as part of the outgoing administration’s ‘maximum pressure’ policy, in exchange for Iran’s returning to the framework of the deal and faithfully meeting all its obligations,” they write. “The United States return to the JCPOA is meant to be a starting point for resuming negotiations with Iran on a range of issues, some of which relate to the existing deal, and others, such as surface-to-surface missiles and Iran’s regional conduct, are issues that were not addressed in the agreement.”

That is likely to make the powers who helped negotiate the agreement happy, the authors say: “The European Western powers even hope to coordinate positions with the new administration beyond the decision-in-principle to return to the deal.”

But the Israelis want to make sure the Biden Administration know the facts, that the Iranians are not letting international inspectors enter some of their underground facilities. And they should know that when the Iranians say publicly they will enrich to 20%, they plan to enrich to a higher grade. Finally, they aren’t telling the truth about the number of centrifuges they’ve got. And Yossi Cohen is, presumably, here with the evidence.