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From the reactions of senior Israeli governmentofficials, one might think that Iran left Geneva with approval from the P5+1 todevelop nuclear weapons, and that the agreement reached will allow Iran to becomea “nuclear threshold state.”

The agreement signed in Geneva is a preliminaryand partial agreement only, with limited steps required of each side and validfor six months, during which time the P5+1 and Iran will attempt to reach afinal, comprehensive agreement. Nevertheless, interim agreements have atendency to evolve into permanent agreements, particularly if efforts to reacha final agreement are unsuccessful. Israel would have preferred a finalagreement already at this stage – an agreement in which Iran’s breakout time tonuclear weapons will be measured in years and not in months. Israel must now workto increase the chances that such an agreement is in fact reached in the comingsix months.

Despite his firm opposition to theagreement – or perhaps because of it – Prime Minister Netanyahu can take creditfor an improvement in the parameters in the agreement, compared to what wasproposed to Iran two weeks earlier. He has helped transform a “very bad”agreement into an agreement that can be lived with – for six months. On theplus side of the agreement is that this is the first time since 2003 that theIranian nuclear program has been stopped and is even being rolled back, albeit toa limited degree. For the first time in years, the time it could take Iran tobreak out to nuclear weapons – which is the leading parameter for measuring thedanger of the Iranian program – will be lengthened, rather than shortened. Evenif this is only a slight improvement, the change in direction is significant. Haltingthe process of enrichment to 20 percent, converting uranium already enriched to20 percent, freezing the size of the stockpile of 3.5 percent enriched materialand of the total number of installed and operating centrifuges, suspending theplutonium track at Arak, and most important, strengthening and intensifyingsupervision – all these are important achievements in a preliminary agreement. Nevertheless,they are unacceptable as parameters for a final agreement. In the finalagreement, it will be necessary to make certain that the time it takes Iran tobreak out to a nuclear weapon is measured in years rather than in months,primarily through a dramatic reduction in the number of centrifuges and theremoval of the stockpile of enriched uranium from Iran.

In return for the restrictions on theIranian nuclear program, the P5+1 have approved a limited easing of thesanctions, which will yield Iran an estimated $7 billion. The firm message fromthe White House regarding its commitment to enforce the sanctions and to punishthose firms that may attempt to bypass the sanctions during the negotiations reducesthe chances that the preliminary agreement will lead to the collapse of thesanctions regime.

Following announcement of the agreement, newimportant commitments were sounded by President Obama and Secretary of StateKerry to stop the Iranian nuclear program, and to achieve that goal, to asignificant degree, in the final agreement. The United States has alsounderscored that the preliminary agreement is not an acceptable final arrangement.

Among the shortcomings of the preliminaryagreement is that Iran has been freed from the Security Council’s demands thatit completely dismantle its nuclear infrastructure. Nor does the preliminaryagreement demand that Iran provide answers to various open questions regardingthe military aspects of its nuclear program, even though this is a demand madeby the International Atomic Energy Agency. In addition, the preliminaryagreement does not de jure recognize Iran’s right to enrich uraniumindependently – but it does allow Iran to continue to enrich uranium up to 3.5percent, and to assemble new centrifuges in place of those that are damaged. Assuch it gives de facto legitimacy to the Iranian demand for recognitionof its right to enrich uranium. Finally, the agreement does not establish anefficient mechanism for uncovering undisclosed sites connected to the Iraniannuclear program. The agreement’s terms are based on the assumption that overthe next six months Iran will not work in any undisclosed sites to advance itsnuclear program. However, this assumption is somewhat suspect, since all ofIran’s declared sites were built secretly and were only revealed by Iranianopposition organizations and Western intelligence organizations.

One should not compare the agreement to an“ideal agreement” drafted in the spirit of Security Council Resolution 1737, orto some other optimal scenario whereby if the Geneva agreement had not beensigned Iran would collapse economically and then be prepared to renounce itsnuclear capabilities. In all realism, had the negotiations collapsed, Iran wouldcertainly have continued to enrich its uranium up to levels of 20 percent, operatethe advanced centrifuges, and continue the construction of the heavy waterreactor at Arak. Failure of the talks would likely have ended the cooperationamong the P5+1 against Iran, following which the sanctions regime would havebegun to crack – and with Israel blamed by the international community for the failureof the talks. Given this likely alternative scenario, the preliminary agreementreached at Geneva is not entirely bad. Iran reached the status of a thresholdstate long before this agreement, and not because of it. Indeed, it has been athreshold state for several years already, and continues to shorten the breakouttime.

Only six months or one year from now willwe be in a position to assess the value of the agreement that was signed onSunday in Geneva: only then will we know whether it is similar to the 1938 Munichagreement, which within one year was exposed in all its ignominy, or whether itis more like the Camp David agreement, which within one year led to the peaceagreement between Egypt and Israel.

My thanks to Avner Golov for his importantcontribution in preparation of this article.