During his long career in public office, Joe Biden has frequently professed his sympathy with, and even love for, the Jewish state. While Elliott Abrams believes these professions are sincere, there is little doubt in his mind that the informal agreement President Biden appears to be considering with Iran will greatly increase the dangers to Israel—not to mention those to America:

It is fair to say that the United States is paying Iran to stop taking American hostages and trying to kill Americans, an amazing response by a superpower to violent and unlawful actions by a vulnerable middle power. . . . The deal seems aimed at protecting the United States in part and the Biden administration in part. If Iran keeps its promises for a while, American soldiers in Syria and Iraq, and American visitors to Iran, will temporarily be safer.

It is fair to ask whether Americans, and the United States, are really safer when our response to hostage taking, murderous attacks on American service members, and nuclear blackmail is to pay more money. [However], under this apparent agreement, President Biden will be safer—from having to confront, before the 2024 U.S. election, an Iran steadily moving toward nuclear weapons. He has bought time for himself.

The agreement also makes it harder for Israel to strike at Iran’s growing nuclear program, because the administration will now argue that with [uranium] enrichment capped at 60 percent, there’s no imminent danger. Iran, meanwhile, can improve its enrichment capabilities, upgrade its centrifuges, and continue secret work on a warhead.

All of this reflects the Biden administration’s—and over many years, America’s—unwillingness to confront Iran over behavior that has for decades included killing Americans. One can think of other possible responses to the taking of hostages, ranging all the way back to “millions for defense but not one cent for tribute” in 1797. This time, it looks like up to $20 billion for tribute.

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.