Netanyahu Is Paying for Iran's Uranium with the Blood of IDF Soldiers | OP ED

Here is the deal that Benjamin Netanyahu has agreed to, whether he admits it or not.

Hezbollah fires explosive drones at Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon every single day. Since the April ceasefire, Hezbollah has killed at least 11 Israeli soldiers and injured some 200 more. A senior Israeli official told Channel 12 that Israel is currently "defenseless" against the drone threat. "At the moment, we are defenseless in the face of this deadly reality," said the unnamed official, described as someone involved in security cabinet discussions.

The IDF Chief of Staff went to the Security Cabinet and said Israel should strike Beirut. Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir told ministers they could not operate with a "tweezer," that the current constraints made meaningful retaliation impossible. Finance Minister Smotrich demanded ten buildings in Beirut for every drone. Even that most cautious of men, Benjamin Netanyahu, eventually ordered the IDF to "hit the gas."

And yet for weeks, the IDF's hands were tied. Why? Because Israel is largely restrained in the scope of its operations due to pressure from the US during talks with Iran. The last Israeli strike on Beirut before early May came only after Trump had specifically asked Israel to stop targeting the Lebanese capital.

Trump called Lebanon a "separate skirmish." A separate skirmish. Tell that to the families of the soldiers being killed by Iranian-supplied drones while their government waits politely for diplomatic progress in Doha.

So what is Israel waiting for? The uranium. The great prize. The reason Netanyahu signed on to Trump's ceasefire framework and accepted constraints on his military's freedom of action is that Trump promised the uranium would come out. Netanyahu is skeptical talks will produce an agreement, particularly because Iran has refused to give up its enriched uranium, a sticking point for the US.

And here is the nightmare scenario now taking shape. Reuters reported, citing two senior Iranian sources, that Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has issued a directive that Iran's near-weapons-grade uranium stockpile must not be sent abroad. Iran's semi-official Fars news agency stated flatly that Iran has made "no commitments in this agreement regarding handing over nuclear stockpiles, removing equipment, closing facilities, or even pledging not to build a nuclear bomb."

Read that again. No commitments on the stockpile. No commitment on equipment. No pledge not to build a bomb.

Iran had initially resisted including any commitment on its highly enriched uranium in the first phase of the agreement, arguing the issue should be delayed to a second stage of negotiations. That is the oldest trick in the diplomatic playbook: agree in principle, defer the substance, pocket the concessions, and revisit. Iran has been playing this game for twenty years.

So the trade Netanyahu made is becoming clear in all its ugliness. He restrained the IDF from striking the organization that is killing his soldiers daily. He accepted American pressure to hold off on Beirut. He bet everything on Trump extracting the uranium. And now Iran is signaling it may not give up the uranium at all.

The deal envisions the US lifting some sanctions on Iran, enabling it to trade in oil, and unfreezing a reported $25 billion in Iranian assets overseas. Iran gets its money. Iran gets sanctions relief. Iran gets a ceasefire that stopped the bombing of its territory. And in return? Verbal assurances, disputed almost immediately by Tehran, about a stockpile they are now saying they never agreed to hand over.

Netanyahu himself laid out his red lines clearly enough. He said any deal must include the removal of all enriched uranium from Iran, the dismantling of all enrichment infrastructure, and the resolution of the ballistic missile issue, adding that he had insisted on these conditions even during his talk with Trump. Every one of those conditions is currently in serious doubt.

The emerging picture is this: Israeli soldiers bleed in Lebanese dust while diplomats argue in Doha. Iran pockets every concession and retreats on every commitment. Trump declares the deal "largely negotiated" while his own officials acknowledge the central issue, the uranium, remains unresolved. And Netanyahu, the man who built his entire career on the promise that he would never allow Iran to go nuclear, sits in Jerusalem and waits and hopes.

History will not be kind to this moment. The question is whether anyone in Jerusalem is willing to say so out loud before it is too late.