Lazar Berman is The Times of Israel's diplomatic reporter
Yossi Cohen, then the national security adviser, is seen in a committee meeting at the Israeli parliament on December 8, 2015, sitting behind Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Senior Israeli national security officials are in Washington for their first face-to-face meetings in the United States with their Biden administration counterparts. The focus of the conversations is squarely on the terms of the US return to the 2015 nuclear deal, which Iran has been gradually and openly violating.
Though they are senior figures and well-respected in Washington, Mossad agency chief Yossi Cohen and National Security Advisor Meir Ben-Shabbat face a difficult task. As talks on the future of the deal progress in Vienna, it is becoming increasingly clear that the US and Iran will eventually reach an agreement — and there’s nothing Israeli officials can do to stop it.