A Hormuz deal leaves Iran its uranium

President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he’d fight the Iran war all over again. “Long term it’s the only answer,” he told reporters. “You can’t let Iran have a nuclear weapon.” He’s right about that. Which is precisely why the deal his negotiators are working on should worry him even more than the midterm election results do.Israel’s security establishment has briefed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Israel Katz, and the Israel Defense Forces’ chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, on three ways this ends.In one, the talks drag on, and the whole region keeps arming. In another, the war restarts with a massive strike on targets all over Iran. In the third, Washington and Tehran sign an agreement opening the Strait of Hormuz all the way, on Washington’s terms. Which would settle nothing about Iran’s nuclear program or its missiles. “Right now the American negotiation with Iran is focused on one issue: the Strait of Hormuz,” an Israeli security official said this week. “It’s not clear how that negotiation serves Israel’s interests on the nuclear program and the missile project.” It isn’t clear how it serves America’s interests either.Washington and Jerusalem opened this war with the strikes of Feb. 28 to keep a bomb out of Iran’s hands, and Trump affirmed that existential goal again yesterday.Yes, a reopened strait likely brings gas prices down — and gas prices just cost his party both houses of Congress. I understand the pull. But a deal that opens the shipping lanes and stops there leaves Tehran holding the thing the war was meant to take away. In other words, all pain with no gain.When the International Atomic Energy Agency last counted, Iran had 440.9 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60%. That’s a short technical step from weapons grade. On the usual estimate, it’s enough for about nine major bombs if Iran takes it the rest of the way. A Hormuz deal doesn’t touch a gram of it. The scenario to watch is the second sliding into the first.Two sources close to Gulf governments told Reuters this week that further limited strikes on nuclear sites could give Washington a way to claim its objectives were met and call it a day. A few nights of strikes, a victory speech, then a shipping deal. Every box ticked except the uranium.Tehran has read the election as a win and isn’t hiding it. “Americans said NO TO WAR,” wrote Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, the parliament speaker who leads Iran’s negotiators, the morning after. Mojtaba Khamenei, in whose name the regime now speaks, warned against “even the slightest inclination towards submission.” Neither of those men sounds very much like he’s about to hand over the stockpile.YES, JD VANCE: LOSING THE MIDTERMS WAS ‘WORTH IT’ TO PREVENT A NUCLEAR IRANThe new Congress takes their seats on Jan. 3. Until then, Trump holds the cards in this war. A Hormuz deal can carry a nuclear clause: the 60% stock shipped out of Iran, or diluted under inspectors with real access to it.Washington must make that the price of opening the strait before Jan. 3.Uriel Zehavi is Managing Director of the Mitzpe Institute (mitzpe.org) and writes the Israel Brief (israelbrief.com), Sunday to Friday. He is the author of four books, most recently Rooted in Judea: Lives and Law in the Heart of Israel.