Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched a frontal propaganda attack on US President Barack Obama yesterday on the major US television networks, in an effort to counter the White House's aggressive sales campaign on behalf of the framework agreement on Iran's nuclear program reached last week, aimed at legislators on Capitol Hill and at the US public at large.
Obama and his aides have been using the Easter weekend to speak to senators and representatives from both the Democratic and Republican parties in an attempt to persuade them that the proposed agreement with Iran is the most effective way of blocking Iran's path to a nuclear weapon. For Netanyahu, the most important target audience is Democratic legislators torn between their loyalty to Obama and their traditional support for Israel. In the end, it is the Democratic legislators who will decide whether the Senate will be able to override a presidential veto on legislation designed to overturn the deal with Iran.
Netanyahu brought no new ideas to the Sunday talk shows: NBC's "Meet the Press", ABC's "This Week", and CNN's "State of the Union". The same message was repeated on all three programs, with the same emphases. "I'm not trying to kill any deal; I'm trying to kill a bad deal... a deal that is bad from a historical perspective," he said on NBC.
Netanyahu said that the US and its allies should tighten sanctions on Iran to force it to accept more restrictions on its nuclear capabilities. He cast doubt on the effectiveness of the proposed inspection regime for Iran's nuclear sites, pointing out that the world applauded the agreement that was reached on restricting North Korea's nuclear capabilities, but that that agreement collapsed and North Korea went on to develop nuclear weapons. “A better deal would roll back Iran’s vast nuclear infrastructure, and require Iran to stop its aggression in the region, its terror worldwide and its calls and actions to annihilate the state of Israel. That’s a better deal. It’s achievable,” Netanyahu said on CNN.
Asked whether he would prefer a military attack on Iran, Netanyahu responded that he wanted a diplomatic solution, because Israel would pay the price of any attack on Iran.
And asked whether he would not ideally prefer a Middle East free of nuclear weapons, a clear hint to Israel's supposed nuclear capabilities, Netanyahu replied that he would ideally prefer no terrorist state that threatened the entire world, and that the question should not be directed at Israel, a democratic country that had shown restraint and self-control, but at a terrorist state developing intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of striking targets in the US. He repeated Israel's longstanding argument that nuclear weapons in Iran's hands would set off a nuclear arms race in the whole Middle East.
For his part, in an interview with "The New York Times", President Obama stressed the US commitment to Israel's security. "But what I would say to them is that not only am I absolutely committed to making sure they maintain their qualitative military edge, and that they can deter any potential future attacks, but what I'm willing to do is to make the kinds of commitments that would give everybody in the neighborhood, including Iran, a clarity that if Israel were to be attacked by any state, that we would stand by them," Obama said.
Democrat Senator Dianne Feinstein of California told CNN that she wished that Netanyahu would contain himself, adding, "I don't think it's helpful for Israel to come out and oppose this one opportunity to change a major dynamic, which is downhill, a downhill dynamic in this part of the world."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on April 6, 2015
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