Iranian-Israeli Nuclear Accord: Focus on Mutual Benefit

This post follows yesterday's introduction of the concept of simultaneously strengthening the national security of both Iran and Israel. The fundamental question, broached yesterday, concerns the possibility of this being conceivable.

Here I wish to point out an advantage to proceeding with small steps, several of which were suggested in yesterday's post, that are nevertheless sufficiently large so that each side considers them to be beneficial. Each side would say, "Sure; if my adversary were to accept international controls over Weapons System X or Technology Y, that would make me more secure."

One advantage of such an incremental approach is that it avoids the highly contentious Israeli issue of telling the truth about its nuclear capabilities and avoids the unanswerable Iranian issue of what their ultimate intentions are. Whether or not Israel has its reputed 200+ nuclear bombs, if its AWACS are grounded under international observation, it will have more difficulty committing aggression, so Iran should be willing to pay something to achieve that. Whether or not Iranian leaders' ultimate intentions are aggressive, if its research into nuclear warheads is constrained and under international inspections, a future Iranian regime will have more difficulty committing aggression, so Israel should be willing to pay something to achieve that as well.