Jake Sullivan: Israel Has Freedom to Act on Iran Nuclear Threat

As the threat of Iran developing a nuclear weapon continues to rise, the U.S. has given the Israeli government the freedom to act against such a threat.

“We have made clear to Iran that it can never be permitted to obtain a nuclear weapon,” National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said Thursday in the keynote address of a forum at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “As President [Joe] Biden has repeatedly reaffirmed, he will take the actions that are necessary to stand by this statement, including by recognizing Israel’s freedom of action.”

Sullivan said diplomacy and deterrence are the other main components of U.S. strategy with Iran. The Biden administration has been trying to bring Iran back to the negotiating table to revise the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or Iran nuclear deal, agreed to in 2015 from which the U.S. pulled out of during the Trump administration.

“The best way to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon is an effective agreement that stops them from getting a nuclear weapon,” said Sullivan, despite reports that Iran was not complying to terms of the deal.

“And I regard the decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal, the JCPOA, without anything to replace it or any strategy to deal with it other than the imposition of sanctions — which we have continued and added to actually — is not necessarily a pathway to [deterrence].

“So, from my perspective, we are back in a position that we were in before [the JCPOA] — where Iran is enriching, is advancing — and that this nuclear program poses a genuine challenge to our fundamental nonproliferation goals, and we remain determined to ensure that that challenge does not cross the line to Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon.”

Relations with the U.S. and Israel have been strained during the Biden administration. Biden, who spoke out against the Israeli government’s judicial reform plan, which has sparked protests throughout Israel, has yet to formally invite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House.

“The president has had a very long relationship with Prime Minister Netanyahu, and we remain deeply engaged with the Israeli government day-by-day, so a lot of the Sturm und Drang in the media I think has been very much overblown,” Sullivan said.

“When the time is right, and when we have a visit to announce, we’ll announce it. And until then, I think kind of speculating or describing or trying to set any conditions around it just doesn’t comport with the way Joe Biden does business, and never has done business anywhere, especially with a country he loves like Israel.”