The Shahab-3 missile, seen here during Iran’s 2012 “Great Prophet” military exercise. The Shahab-3 is a medium-range ballistic missile capable of delivering nuclear weapons. Photo: Hossein Velayati via Wikimedia Commons.

The director of the Mossad warned that the emerging nuclear deal with Iran is a “strategic disaster,” and cautioned that Israel will not be able to sit idly as the danger to its security grows closer.

“The agreement is a bad deal that gives Iran a license to manufacture a bomb,” David Barnea was quoted as saying during internal security meetings which Israeli media reported, citing unnamed sources.

Barnea emphasized that Israel would respond accordingly.

“The Mossad is committed to preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. The agreement does not apply to Israel, nor does the freedom of action to continue operating.”

Prime Minister Yair Lapid held an intelligence briefing with Barnea in Tel Aviv on Thursday to discuss current security issues, with a focus on the impending nuclear agreement with Iran.

“The Mossad Director reviewed the intelligence situation and the dangers involved in a return to the nuclear agreement,” Lapid’s office said in a statement.

Barnea, who has been leading the Israeli intelligence agency since June 2021, believes that the signing of the deal is inevitable and called it a “done deal” in light of recent progress between American, European and Iranian negotiators.

Earlier this week, the Biden administration issued its response to an EU-drafted final offer for salvaging Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal — known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) — with Western powers, following more than 16 months of indirect talks. The JCPOA offered sanctions relief to Iran in exchange for limits on its nuclear program.

Barnea argued that the emerging nuclear agreement is worse than the one signed in 2015, when Iran’s potential military dimension was unknown.

“We are copy-pasting the 2015 agreement, and the only thing that remains the same since then is the text of the agreement,” Barnea warned. “Everything else has changed. The world has changed. The Iranians have developed their own advanced centrifuges and the threats and technologies have changed.”

The recent developments to try and reach an agreement to revive the 2015 nuclear deal come as the US Central Command responded to rocket attacks by Iranian-affiliated militants in northeast Syria on Wednesday.

“There is a double standard here,” Barnea remarked. “On the one hand, they are sitting in Vienna and approaching an agreement – and on the other hand, Iran is acting and sending terrorist arms against the Americans and is deceiving the world.”

Barnea cautioned that once sanctions are lifted, hundreds of billions of dollars will be freed to flow into Iran to fund terrorist organizations in the region, including Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Houthi rebels in Yemen, and Hamas, all of which will severely challenge Israeli and American security interests.