The Biden administration’s push for a nuclear deal with Iran would grant the Islamic Republic a “nuclear arsenal” in addition to billions in funds for sponsoring terror, according to former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who warned Americans of the threat Iran would pose toward them and the world.
Addressing “every American family” in a video clip he shared on Twitter Sunday, Netanyahu called “the desperate rush to sign this flawed nuclear agreement” with the Islamic Republic of Iran both “absurd” and “downright dangerous.”
Referring to Iran’s claim of responsibility for a missile barrage that struck early Sunday near a sprawling U.S. consulate complex in the northern Iraqi city of Erbil, the former Israeli prime minister blasted the current administration’s willingness to continue pursuing a deal under such circumstances.
“Yesterday, Iran fired missiles in the vicinity of the American consulate in Iraq, and the U.S. continues to charge ahead along with the other powers, to sign a nuclear agreement that will give the ayatollahs a nuclear arsenal,” he said.
He also warned that a revival of the 2015 nuclear deal would “relieve sanctions” and grant the theocratic state “hundreds of billions of dollars in order to continue the terror that they waged yesterday and wage every day throughout the Middle East and the world.”
Netanyahu deemed the pending deal more harmful than the original one, which offered Iran sanctions relief in return for promises not to enrich uranium beyond a certain level for a limited period, claiming it would aid Iran’s ability to produce even more weapons.
“This agreement is even worse than its predecessor,” he said, “because in three years’ time under this agreement, Iran will be a threshold nuclear state.”
“It will have enough enriched uranium to create dozens and dozens of nuclear bombs,” he added, “and it will have the ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles) to deliver them to any place in the United States.”
Calling the prospect of such a scenario “unbelievable,” Netanyahu warned it would pose a threat to America as well as to the rest of the world.
“It’s not merely unacceptable,” he said. “It endangers not only my country, Israel, but your country, the United States, and the entire world.”
He concluded by cautioning against letting “an aggressive rogue terrorist regime like Iran” obtain nuclear weapons.
“Have we learned nothing?” he asked, speaking against the backdrop of Israel’s capital, Jerusalem.
The clip, slightly over one minute long, received nearly 170,000 views within a day.
Netanyahu was not the only prominent figure to call out the United States’ handling of the Iran deal, especially in light of the recent Iranian missile attack on Iraq.
“It would be completely insane for Biden to continue trying to make a deal with Iran after it attacked our consulate in Iraq with ballistic missiles. No talks. No concessions. No new Iran Deal,” wrote former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley.
“Joe Biden should stop negotiating with the leading state sponsor of terror and start holding Iran accountable for its actions,” tweeted Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR).
“The Biden Admin is negotiating a nuclear deal with Iran that is likely even weaker than 2015 agreement. Meanwhile Iran is targeting our service members and diplomats,” wrote Sen. Todd Young (R-IN).
“We need to walk away from this very bad deal that will make us even more vulnerable,” he added.
“Iran is the world’s largest state sponsor of terror,” wrote former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. “It must remain designated as such, and terrorist-related sanctions must remain in place.”
“Iran must never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon,” he added.
Iran, the largest state sponsor of terrorism worldwide, claims its nuclear program is for energy purposes, but world leaders, including the six nations that joined the 2015 deal to limit Iran’s nuclear weapons capacity, say enriching uranium may lead to Iran’s ability to quickly create a nuclear weapon.
The Obama-led nuclear deal — deemed fatally flawed and highly one-sided by many, and from which then-President Donald Trump withdrew in 2018 — delineates an enrichment limit of 3.67 percent.
Iran has been accused of violating the agreement as Tehran produces more enriched uranium.
Nevertheless, current nuclear talks in Vienna may see the United States and other world powers provide Iran with economic sanctions relief in exchange for temporary restrictions on its nuclear program.
According to a former State Department official, President Biden’s impending agreement to restore the Iran nuclear deal offers the regime access to $90 billion in foreign currency reserves and sanctions relief to some of the world’s worst terrorists.
Earlier this month, Russia’s envoy to the Iran nuclear talks admitted that Tehran “got much more than it could expect” in the latest iteration of the nuclear deal.
Last month, Netanyahu said Israel should be more cautious about its attitude to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and instead focus on the Iran nuclear deal, which was more of an “existential security threat.”
In August, the former Israeli prime minister revealed he had refused an offer from then-President Barack Obama’s Secretary of State John Kerry to adopt the now-failed “Afghanistan model,” which entailed relying upon Palestinian forces to counter terrorists.
“In 2013, I was approached by the then-U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry, who invited me on a secret visit to Afghanistan to see, he said, how the United States had set up a local military force that could stand alone against terrorism,” he said.
“The message was clear — the ‘Afghanistan model’ is the model that the United States seeks to apply to the Palestinian situation as well,” he added.
But Netanyahu claimed to have “politely declined” to entertain the notion.
“I estimated then that as soon as the United States left Afghanistan, everything would collapse. This is unfortunately what has happened these days: an extremist Islamic regime has conquered Afghanistan and will turn it into a state of terror that will endanger world peace,” he added.
Follow Joshua Klein on Twitter @JoshuaKlein.
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