What does the Iranian foreign minister’s resignation mean for Israel?

“As long as I’m here, Iran won’t have a nuclear weapon.”

Suggestions we will inevitably miss Mr Zarif’s tenure on the grounds that he was a “moderate” should be tempered by the fact he has been the smiling outward face of a regime propping up Syria’s dictator, who has slaughtered hundreds and thousands of his own people.

But, with the prospect that Mr Zarif could be replaced with someone even more hardline in their way of thinking, should Israel’s response rather be “better the devil you know”?

With no official reason given by Mr Zarif for his resignation, all that remains is speculation. Mr Zarif resigned just hours after Bashar Al-Assad, the previously mentioned dictator, paid a surprise visit to Tehran.

If the trip was also a surprise to Mr Zarif, he may have concluded that he was being slowly kept out of the loop, and decided to jump before being pushed. 

But it is worth noting that Mr Zarif was a key architect of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA, better known as the Iran nuclear deal) signed in 2015 between Iran and the P5+1 world powers (US, UK, France, China, Russia and Germany).

Since the end of Barak Obama’s presidential tenure, his successor, Donald Trump, has done everything he can to reverse America’s involvement in that deal. He withdrew from it and reinstated stricter sanctions on Iran last May.

There are suggestions that, for extreme hardliners in Iran, patience for the deal has run out.

Reuters reported just a few weeks ago a speech by Hassan Abbasi, the former commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps,  included the line “Rouhani, Zarif and (parliament speaker Ali) Larijani, go to hell.”

The former military man also said the Iranian people would spit on Mr Zarif and those officials who supported the nuclear pact with foreign powers.

It’s possible that the foreign minister, as the public face of the deal, has been jettisoned to appease the hardliners. In which case, Mr Zarif's replacement could indeed make his predecessor seem tame in comparison. 

Up until now, Iran has, at least publicly, maintained the JCPOA with its European partners. But, having brutally crushed protests across Iran last year, the Ayatollah Khomeini’s regime may now feel it is in a position to pull out of the deal in its entirety, citing the US precedent.

For Mr Netanyahu, who has modelled his language on the Iranian nuclear threat to mimic Churchillian warnings about the rise of Hitler, the resignation of Mr Zarif will have come as a gift, especially so soon before an election.

Expect renewed emphasis from the Israeli Prime Minister on the threat posed by Israel’s bitterest enemy – and the suggestion that only he has the skill and determination to defeat this foe.