Although the battle to ratify the Iran nuclear agreement has begun in earnest with briefings, hearings, media presentations and old-fashioned arm twisting, a senior Israeli official told a key parliamentary committee on Wednesday that the Obama administration has not yet provided Jerusalem with the annexes and addendums to the pact that are key to understanding the deal. National Security Adviser Yossi Cohen told the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that, “In contrast to the promises we have heard, Israel has yet to receive all of the annexes of the Iran deal.” Cohen’s charge runs counter to promises by the US administration to keep Israel well informed about the agreement. Meanwhile, US media have picked-up on details found in the annexes such as the provision that allows the Iranians to collect their own soil samples for testing by the International Atomic Energy Agency. This fact, in addition to the 24-day window available for the Iranians to sanitize sites under scrutiny before they are inspected, form main elements of the arguments offered by the deal’s critics. On Wednesday, evidence of the Mideast arms race opponents of the Iranian deal argued would ensue surfaced in the form of Pentagon notification to Congress that a possible sale of more than $5 billion worth of PAC-3 missiles to Saudi Arabia had been approved. In Israel, the daily newspaper Haaretz reported it had obtained a classified letter sent by Israel’s consul general in Philadelphia to the foreign ministry warning that the American Jewish community “is not standing as a united front behind Israel and important parts of it are on the fence.” Consul General Yaron Sideman was quoted as predicting that, “In the next year and a half Israel’s and the Jewish communities’ maneuvering space regarding advancing Israel’s interests is extremely limited to non-existent.”
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Photo: A man holds a poster during a rally against the nuclear deal with Iran in Times Square in New York on July 22, 2015. (KENA BETANCUR/AFP/Getty Images)