Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned on CBS Sunday that Iran is “not developing these intercontinental ballistic missiles for us — they are developing them for you.”
“And they will be able to tip them with nuclear warheads within 10 or 15 years,” he added.
When asked if he’ll be lobbying Congress to shoot down the deal, Netanyahu replied, “Look, I feel it’s my obligation as the prime minister of Israel to speak out against something that endangers the survival of my country, the security of the region, the security of the world.”
“And I obviously make my case. I think that is important. It’s not only important for us. I think it’s important for the entire world.”
He stressed that it’s a lie to say everybody except Israel hates the deal, “but even if they did, there was a celebrated deal just a few years ago, a nuclear deal.”
“Everybody, the scientific community, the international community, everybody applauded it. It was a deal with North Korea. That proved to be a historic mistake as well,” the prime minister added. “And North Korea today has dozen nuclear bombs and is on track to get within few years 100 nuclear bombs. I think that this is a repeat of the mistake of North Korea. And what is more, Ayatollah Khamenei, the ruler of Iran, the dictator in Tehran, is saying that he’s going to continue his battle against the United States and his worldwide terrorism.”
Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said Sunday that his trip to the Middle East this week isn’t about trying to convert Israeli leadership into liking the Iran nuclear deal, but about getting ready for Iranian aggression.
Carter told reporters en route to Tel Aviv on that “I’m not going to change anybody’s mind in Israel.”
“That’s not the purpose of my trip. The purpose of my trip is to work on all the things that we do together: to guarantee the security of American interests in the region, and very importantly one of those is the security of Israel,” he said.
“Because of Iran’s potential for aggression and malign activities, we’re always looking for ways to strengthen our posture there. And, of course, we have another major reason to have a strong posture, and another major ingredient of our defense strategy towards the region, which is countering extremism there. So for both of those reasons, we’re always looking for ways that we can strengthen our posture. And, of course, we do that everywhere with friends and allies, Gulf countries, other countries in the region, and of course, especially our longstanding friend and ally, Israel.”
Netanyahu told ABC that the U.S. won’t be able to buy his support.
“Everybody talks about compensating Israel. I guess the question you have to ask yourself is, if this deal is supposed to make Israel and our Arab neighbors safer, why should we be consecrated — compensated with anything?” he said.
“And furthermore, you know, how can you compensate a country, my country, against a terrorist regime that is sworn to our destruction and is going to get a path to nuclear bombs and billions of dollars to boot for its terror activities against us, against you, against everyone else. I think the right thing to do is not to do this bad deal.”
Join the conversation as a VIP Member