TEL AVIV — The faltering US-Iran negotiations over Tehran opening the Strait of Hormuz and other issues reflect what Israeli security experts describe as strategic mistakes by both Israel and the United States during and after their war against Iran. With the immediate diplomatic focus now shifted from Iran's nuclear program to freedom of navigation through Hormuz, many Israeli officials assess that Israel has emerged from the war in a weaker strategic position than it held before the attack on Iran.

Overplaying the nuclear threat

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed on Wednesday that Iran had manufactured nuclear weapons, citing that assertion as justification for the war against the Islamic Republic. His political rivals dismissed the statement as an attempt to rewrite history and stoke public fears ahead of elections to be held no later than October 27.

Netanyahu has long argued that his policies had prevented Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, but in an interview with the right-wing Channel 14, he said Israel had twice been forced to attack Iran "to save us from the destruction of atomic bombs that they already had, and who knows which of us would still be around."