How Obama Got to ‘Yes’ on Iran: The Inside Story

On Friday night, November 8, 2013, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked me to come by his residence after sundown for an informal chat. I was in Jerusalem, and he wanted to discuss the talks with the Palestinians and the nuclear negotiations with Iran. As it turned out, I arrived while he was on a secure call with President Barack Obama. When I joined the prime minister after the call, he was as disturbed as I had ever seen him. Earlier in the day, Secretary John Kerry had left Israel to go to Geneva to see whether an interim deal on the Iranian nuclear program could be concluded. The Israelis had been surprised that such a deal was suddenly on the brink of happening. Only a week earlier, Israel’s Iran team was briefed on the status of the talks, but National Security Adviser Susan Rice had not authorized the Israelis to be briefed on the actual state of play in the negotiations.