Exclusive: Inside the U.S.-Iran Blueprint

Also, Iran's map to missile recovery, and the take Israel's elites couldn't handle.

Donald Trump speaks with members of the media before boarding Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House. (White House)

It’s Monday, April 20, and according to Donald Trump, talks with Iran are scheduled to resume tomorrow, though the Islamic Republic has stated it will not send a delegation. Despite the posturing, a senior official confirmed to me that a six-point outline is currently under discussion between the United States and Iran.

The proposed framework includes:

1. A 15-year suspension of enrichment. The United States originally demanded a 20-year freeze, while Tehran pushed for significantly less; the two sides eventually settled on 15.

2. Pre-existing stockpiles of enriched uranium will be down-blended and converted into uranium gas. This essentially resets Iran to the starting line of the enrichment process. Coupled with the fact that almost all of its centrifuges are either damaged or buried under thousands of tons of rubble, re-enrichment becomes significantly harder. However, this mechanism means the uranium won’t necessarily leave Iranian soil, which remains a major concern for Israel.

3. Nuclear facilities will be opened to inspections, which will likely be conducted by U.S. representatives rather than the IAEA.

4. The Strait of Hormuz will be reopened to all commercial traffic, without an Iranian toll booth.

5. A formal end to the war, a guarantee against further hostilities, and the withdrawal of American forces from the Gulf.

6. A phased lifting of economic sanctions.

Besides nuclear concessions, it is this lifting of sanctions that worries Jerusalem the most. Contrary to some reporting, direct regime change was not an explicit strategic goal of the campaign; rather, the objective was creating the conditions for the regime’s collapse. So far, it has been quite successful. Driven primarily by compounding sanctions and the continued blockade, the government is teetering on the brink. Lifting these measures now will provide the regime with a crucial financial lifeline, giving it desperately needed breathing room.

It is important to specify that this framework remains entirely theoretical. Nothing is agreed to, and if I had a nickel for every supposed negotiation position that was reported and then promptly abandoned, I wouldn’t have to make a living reporting the news.

Regardless, the prevailing consensus in Israel remains that the status quo—a prolonged state of “no war, no peace,” with U.S. military forces remaining on standby in the Persian Gulf, strangling the Iranian economy—is vastly preferable to this agreement. However, as recent developments in Iran and Lebanon have made abundantly clear, Trump’s actions do not hinge on Israeli desires.

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Palestinians surround debris from a ballistic missile fired from Iran toward Israel that fell outside the Palestinian village of Beitin, northeast of Ramallah. (Flash90)

“Within 3 to 5 years, we will be able to develop a laser that can also intercept ballistic missiles from Iran,” Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Chairman Yuval Steinitz told me on last week’s Meet the Press. It sounds like science fiction, but so did the last weapon his company managed to produce: the Iron Beam laser defense.

According to the Finance Ministry, Operation Roaring Lion cost the country approximately NIS 35 billion (roughly $11.5 billion)—comprising NIS 22 billion in direct defense expenditures and NIS 13 billion in lost economic output. A “titanium” beam capable of shooting down ballistic missiles would slash the $3 million price tag of a traditional interception down to just a few dollars. Crucially, it would also address the swirling rumors regarding Israel’s steadily depleting Arrow 3 interceptor stockpiles. While exact figures remain classified, it is safe to conclude that current Israeli reserves are significantly lower than they were before the war began.

This weapon could be a game-changer, and Israel is going to need the help.

Despite the destruction wrought across the region, according to a recent report by Galei Tzahal, the current negotiations between Iran and the U.S.—like those of the JCPOA—contain a major blind spot: ballistic missiles.

The IDF’s Intelligence Directorate recently presented a stark graph mapping the projected pace of Iran’s missile restoration. The graph features three lines:

• The red line represents the arsenal Iran would have accumulated if Israel had not launched Operation Roaring Lion. Without that campaign, military intelligence estimates that Iran would have amassed approximately 8,000 ballistic missiles within a year and a half, and up to 11,000 within two and a half years.

• The orange and yellow lines represent Aman’s differing estimates for Iran’s current production capacity if no restrictions are imposed in the negotiated agreement. This projection is highly complex and subject to several variables: Will China supply the necessary raw materials and planetary mixers? Will the Iranian regime pour its remaining funds into the missile industry, or will the severe economic blows force a pivot toward domestic rehabilitation? Yet, even accounting for these variables, Aman concludes that in both the “severe” and “reasonable” scenarios, Iran will be capable of accumulating thousands of ballistic missiles within just a few short years.

Israel has consequently drawn its own “red line”—the point at which the volume of missiles would overwhelm existing air defense. If Iran approaches this threshold, Jerusalem has made it clear that another preemptive strike will be necessary.

In a nutshell: any diplomatic agreement that fails to impose strict restrictions on Iran’s ballistic missile program will simply allow Tehran to replenish its arsenal using unfrozen funds. Even if Washington succeeds in forcing Iran to halt enrichment and remove all enriched uranium from its territory, leaving the missile threat unaddressed guarantees that another round of war against Iran in the next few years is entirely possible.

Let’s hope Rafael delivers that laser on time.

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Eli Finish, actor on the comedy show Eretz Nehederet, at the studio in Herzliya. (Moshe Shai/FLASH90)

Each copy of Haaretz should come with a complimentary prescription for antidepressants. I can summarize their entire editorial line for you right now: Everything is terrible, the state is collapsing, and the worst is yet to come.

This cultivated despair is the price of admission for the Israeli cultural elite, which is why the actor Eli Finish recently found himself at the center of a digital firestorm. His crime wasn’t pledging loyalty to Ben-Gvir, but a simple 36-word post celebrating a “stunned Iran” and an “army that went Hollywood.” By uttering the phrase Am Yisrael Chai without a hint of irony, Finish committed the ultimate secular sin: seeing light in the darkness.

Indeed, the very name of the show he stars in, Eretz Nehederet (“A Wonderful Country”), Israel’s version of SNL, is the crux of the cultural clash. It is an optimistic phrase coined by Netanyahu, which is now uttered by his detractors, drenched in sarcasm. That’s the entire debate encapsulated in exactly two words.

“The problem isn’t Eli Finish at all; the problem is Eli Finish-ism,” railed a senior presenter at the Public Broadcasting Corporation. “How fun it is to live in a movie where everything is awesome. It’s a phenomenon where we try to force the structure of a Hollywood blockbuster onto the bleeding reality of the Middle East.”

Excuse me, but what about mainstream media-ism? The kind that takes a Hollywood-style pager attack and two Spielberg-esque operations in Iran and turns them into a small, silence-filled Norwegian drama about postpartum depression in the eternal winter.

This is an excerpt from my weekly column in Israel Hayom

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English Editor: Ari Tatarka

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