Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not a mere attendee in form in the Geneva negotiations over the Iranian nuclear file. Indeed, he appeared to be the greatest negotiator in the face of an "opponent" that kept calling throughout years for Israel's wiping "off the map", before it was convinced by the sword of the sanctions to adopt unparalleled "realism" and "heroic flexibility," as seen for instance in the submission of the Syrian regime and the surrender of its chemical fangs. According to Israel's calculations and goals, Iran must also surrender, but beyond the official statements showing good intentions towards the West in exchange for regional partnerships affecting thorny files. In reality, Netanyahu was not lying when he recurrently said that the sword of the international sanctions severed many veins of Iranian economy. And had this not been the case, Guide Ali Khamenei would not have resorted to the flexibility of the heroes who were evasive with the Europeans and the Great Satan for more than ten years. To the Guide, the latter are heroes, even if they recognized the Holocaust committed by the Nazis against the Jews and extended their hands to Satan. So, why all these wasted years of threats and warnings and why were the Iranians deprived of a stable economy and livelihood? This question leads us to another: What if "moderate" President Hassan Rohani were to follow in the footsteps of former reformist President Mohamed Khatami, one which was wiped away by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's menaces? Seeing the negotiators in Geneva on the court of the Iranian nuclear file will become an ordinary event, while the attempts to secure rapprochement between Tehran and Washington have exceeded the stage of wooing. Indeed, there is the Iranian temptation of immortalizing the memory of President Barack Obama in America, and the carrot of the alleviation of the sanctions imposed on Iran. London even outbid Washington by hastening diplomatic normalization. Netanyahu was the only one who obstructed the quick lifting of the economic sanctions, at a time when Rohani kept an eye on him to prevent him from thwarting the deal with the West. This is why the Iranian delegation to Geneva made sure to preserve the confidential character of its proposal, despite its confusion at the level of the submission to a surprise inspection of the nuclear facilities. In this context, the insistence of Iranian Foreign Minister Mohamed Javad Zarif on going to Geneva despite his back pain was paradoxical, as though he were addressing a message to the hardliners in Iran saying that the painful sanctions, which almost broke the backbone of his country's economy, can only be lifted through equally painful concessions. What is certain – with or without Netanyahu's pressures – is that the West will not relinquish its initial demand for the suspension of Iran's enrichment of uranium to 20%, which would enable it to produce the atomic bomb. On the other hand, it will not be possible to learn early on about the willingness of the P5+1 group to link any agreement over the Iranian nuclear file to a basket of understandings over regional security, or the distribution of the roles to contain the repercussions of the Arab spring. Clearly, Tehran's greatest wish is to see a tradeoff, but the question continues to surround that of the major players to rehabilitate a superpower by giving it critical tasks in the confrontation of sectarian-denominational wars, and in the context of war on terrorism and violence. And while some Europeans are showing inflexibility towards the Iranian intentions and questioning Khamenei's ability to acclimatize the Revolutionary Guard to the role of guardian of the deal – after what it perpetrated in Syria and Iraq – they are sharing Israeli concerns surrounding the American rush to normalize the relations with a power, which was - throughout more than a decade - the sponsor of terrorism around the world or the guardian of the regional Axis of Evil. Regardless of the painful course of the Islamic Republic that rode the train of normalization with the Great Satan, it is clearly trying to heed the Syrian lesson. And instead of negotiating over the regulation of enrichment alone or submitting to the dismantlement of all its nuclear facilities, it is wagering on accessing the club of the "peaceful" nuclear states, so that Israel is not the only dominant power amid the storm of the Arabs' spring, the collapse of their states and institutions, and the depletion of their armies in battles against Al-Qaeda and its offshoots. During the Geneva meetings over the nuclear file, Iran is trying to build trust with the West, as it was done by the Syrian regime with Israel by abstaining from provoking its concerns in the Golan. In that sense, the West believes that what used to be dubbed the Axis of Evil in the region is trustworthy, as soon as it signs the deal. Israel and Iran are competing over the distribution of regional roles to "besiege the fire of the spring," while the Arabs are busy offering victims for the spring of death and destruction.
