WarSclerotic

For the second time in as many days, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said publicly that rogue regimes that develop weapons of mass destruction will end up using them.

The comments come as Netanyahu’s office said the Israeli leader will meet U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington on September 30, an Israeli official said on Tuesday, for talks expected to focus on Iran’s nuclear program.

Netanyahu, confirming he would see Obama but giving no exact date, said the talks would take place before he attended the annual United Nations General Assembly in New York.

“I intend to focus on the question of stopping Iran’s nuclear program – an actual halt to the nuclear program. And until this is achieved, the pressure on Iran should be intensified and not eased,” Netanyahu told his cabinet.

An Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Netanyahu and Obama would meet on Sept 30 in Washington and that the prime minister would probably address the U.N. assembly the next day.

According to a statement from his office, Netanyahu outlined four steps he said were “the way to stop Iran’s nuclear program.”

“Stopping all uranium enrichment, removing all enriched uranium, decommissioning Qom and stopping the production of plutonium.

“Only a combination of these four measures would truly constitute stopping the nuclear program. Until all four objectives are met, we must intensify the pressure on Iran and not let go — and certainly not ease it,” Netanyahu said.

“I believe that the events of the past few weeks have proven all of our assumptions: that a rogue country that develops or possesses weapons of mass destruction could very well use it, and at the end of the day one might say, will in fact use it; that only a credible military threat can facilitate diplomatic processes or other means of stopping this kind of armament; and that Israel must continue to fortify its strengths so that it is always prepared and ready to defend itself, by itself, against any threat. I will repeat a saying that you are all familiar with: If I am not for me, who will be for me? I say this in the collective sense of our people,” he said.

Israel fears that a tepid international response to Syria’s use of nerve gas in Damascus on August 21st could encourage Iran to press forward with what is widely believed to be a nuclear weapons program.

On Monday, Netanyahu welcomed the U.S.-Russia deal and stressed his belief that it would have deep repercussions on Iran, Syria’s close ally.

“The world needs to ensure that radical regimes don’t have weapons of mass destruction because as we have learned in Syria, if rogue regimes have weapons of mass destruction they will use them,” Netanyahu said.