Last week, the Israeli minister of strategic affairs, Ron Dermer, visited Washington and met with Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Among the topics they reportedly discussed were normalization between Jerusalem and Riyadh and the possibility of a limited defense treaty between the U.S. and the Jewish state. Jacob Nagel argues that the benefits of such a formal agreement may not be worth the costs. The very existence of such a treaty, he writes, conveys the message that Israel “lacks confidence in its power and capability to defend itself by itself.” And that’s not the only problem:

A hostile president, in the future, could exploit the treaty against Israel, and there are many ways to do so. . . . But the problem is much deeper. NATO’s Article 5 is the highest level of security guarantee that the U.S. can give to its allies. If the U.S., even according to Article 5, will not defend NATO allies if they will launch a preemptive attack, then the U.S. for sure won’t defend anyone else who has a degree of guarantees that falls even below Article 5 levels—like Israel or Saudi Arabia if they will attack Iran, for example.

It is clear that under any defense treaty, Israel will get less than Article 5 guarantees, so presenting such a treaty as giving Israel greater freedom of action against Iran is wrong.

There is also a danger of curtailing Israeli freedom of action in general, especially vis-à-vis Iran, Russia, and China, regardless of what is written in the treaty. A treaty would motivate the U.S. to prevent escalation, in order to prevent a confrontation that would require the U.S. to intervene, which will put a lot of pressure on Israel not to escalate.

If Iran succeeds in obtaining nuclear weapons, the war in Gaza, let alone the protests on college campuses, will seem like a minor complication. Jonathan Schachter fears that this danger could be much more imminent than decisionmakers in Jerusalem and Washington believe. In his view, Israel seems to be repeating the mistake that allowed it to be taken by surprise on Simchat Torah of 2023 and Yom Kippur of 1973: putting too much faith in an intelligence concept that could be wrong.

Israel and the United States apparently believe that despite Iran’s well-documented progress in developing capabilities necessary for producing and delivering nuclear weapons, as well as its extensive and ongoing record of violating its international nuclear obligations, there is no acute crisis because building a bomb would take time, would be observable, and could be stopped by force. Taken together, these assumptions and their moderating impact on Israeli and American policy form a new Iran concept reminiscent of its 1973 namesake and of the systemic failures that preceded the October 7 massacre.

Meanwhile, most of the restrictions put in place by the 2015 nuclear deal will expire by the end of next year, rendering the question of Iran’s adherence moot. And the forces that could be taking action aren’t:

The European Union regularly issues boilerplate press releases asserting its members’ “grave concern.” American decisionmakers and spokespeople have created the unmistakable impression that their reservations about the use of force are stronger than their commitment to use force to prevent an Iranian atomic bomb. At the same time, the U.S. refuses to enforce its own sanctions comprehensively: Iranian oil exports (especially to China) and foreign-currency reserves have ballooned since January 2021, when the Biden administration took office.

Israel’s response has also been sluggish and ambiguous. Despite its oft-stated policy of never allowing a nuclear Iran, Israel’s words and deeds have sent mixed messages to allies and adversaries—perhaps inadvertently reinforcing the prevailing sense in Washington and elsewhere that Iran’s nuclear efforts do not present an exigent crisis.