WarSclerotic

Iran Speeding to Nuclear Weapons Breakout
by Bassam Tawil February 13, 2015 at 5:00 am Via The Gatestone Institute

(Yet another article sounding the alarm on Iran. It’s interesting to note the author states that Mr. Netanyahu and Geert Wilders are only two world leaders telling the truth about Iran. However, the author also comments that many of ‘us’ do not like them or the people they represent. How ironic. – LS)

Iran, with its proxies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Bahrain and Yemen, has surrounded all the oil fields in the region and is currently busy encircling Jordan, Israel and Palestine.

Iran not only reaches now from Afghanistan to the Mediterranean, but Iranian Shi’ites have been spreading out through Africa and South America.

By the time U.S. President Barack Obama leaves office, Iran will not only have nuclear breakout capability, but also the intercontinental ballistic missiles to deliver its nuclear warheads to Europe and North America.

If Iran can finally drive the U.S. out of the Gulf by threatening U.S. assets, it will be free to pursue still further expansion.

If the deal signed with Iran is full of loopholes, it is Obama who will be blamed. Does Obama really want his legacy to be, “The President who was even a bigger fool than Neville Chamberlain”? He will not be seen as “Nixon in China.” He will be seen as the Eid al-Adha lamb.

Recently, foreign ministers from the European Union (EU) have been holding meetings with representatives of the Arab and Muslim world, including Turkey and Qatar, with the intention of forming a “joint task force to fight Islamist terrorism.”

Turkey and Qatar, for example, directly encourage Islamist terrorism, thus there is no way they can be part of a task force to act against it.

In some Islamic thinking, such nonsense, because of its certain lack of ever seeing the light, is merely a prologue to the ultimate war between Gog and Magog (“yagug wamagu”), and heralds the End of Days.

The Arab-Muslim world engages in perpetual internal strife. Iran, for instance, with its proxies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Bahrain and Yemen, has surrounded all the oil fields in the region, and is currently busy encircling Jordan, Israel and the Palestinians. Iran not only reaches now from Afghanistan to the Mediterranean, but Iranian Shi’ites have been spreading out through Africa and South America. Another sign of the End of Days is the United States’ collaboration with Iran against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. It means the world will eventually pay for America’s looking the other way while the Iranians are building nuclear bombs in their cellars.

These cellars may currently be distant from the shores of the United States, but they are close to all the oil fields in the Middle East. By the time U.S. President Barack Obama leaves office, Iran will not only have nuclear breakout capability, but also intercontinental ballistic missiles to deliver its nuclear warheads. Its next target will be U.S. assets in the Gulf. If Iran can finally drive the U.S. “Great Satan” out of the Gulf by threatening U.S. assets, it will be free to pursue still further expansion.

These are or will be the victims of America’s determination to drag out the problem of an exploding Middle East. That way, U.S. President Barack Obama can hand the region over to the next president, while forever pretending that the vacuum created by pulling U.S. troops out of the Middle East — now being filled by Iran, the Islamic State and other terror groups — had nothing to do with him.

This situation leaves, ironically, the lone voice of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu crying in the wilderness. As much as many of us may not like him or the people he represents, he is one of the two world leaders in the West telling the truth, warning of what is to come (Geert Wilders of the Netherlands is the other). This burden of responsibility for his people (how many of us wish our leaders had even a bit of that?) has earned him only the venom of the Obama Administration, who see him as trying to spoil their strategy of leading by procrastination.

It is also becoming increasingly clear that the Obama Administration’s policy consists of running after Iran, in order to concede everything it wants, just to be able wave a piece of paper not worth the ink on it, claiming there is “a deal.” Iran, for its part, would probably prefer not to sign anything, and most likely will not. Meanwhile, both sides continue strenuously to claim the opposite.

Western leaders just seem not to be programmed to understand the capabilities of other leaders, and how they, too, negotiate, manipulate and hide behind lies. Obama’s Russian “Reset Button” did not work; his “Al Qaeda is on the run,” did not work; “We shall never let Russia take the Ukraine” did not work; and the unwinnable Israel-Palestinian “Peace Process” did not work.

Obama, in order to wave a piece of paper not worth the ink on it, seems eager to fall victim to bogus promises, worthless treaties and other leaders’ outright lies — only to look an even bigger fool than Britain’s former Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain. After meeting with Germany’s with Adolf Hitler in 1938, Chamberlain returned to Britain boasting of “peace in our time.” But Chamberlain did not have the luxury of seeing a Chamberlain duped before him. If the deal signed with Iran is full of loopholes, it is Obama who will be blamed. Does Obama really want his legacy to be, “The president who was an even bigger fool than Neville Chamberlain”? He will not be seen as “Nixon in China.” He will be seen as the Eid al-Adha lamb.

Bassam Tawil is a scholar based in the Middle East.

No Thanks to Obama, The World is Finally Figuring Out How to Fight ISIS
by VIRGIL 8 Feb 2015 Via Breitbart

(Like Jordan, will Israel be forced to follow a similar path in dealing with Iran? – LS)

Yes, it’s unfortunate that the US has a president, Barack Obama, who consistently sees things from the Muslim point of view. Even the Obamaphilic reporter Juliet Eilperin, writing for the Obamaphilic Washington Post, had to admit, “President Obama has never been one to go easy on America.”

With a pro-Muslim commander-in-chief, and with the administration insisting that “climate change” is the greatest threat we face, it shouldn’t be a surprise that the villainous Islamic State is on the march in the Middle East.

That’s the bad news. And yet, paradoxically, there’s also some good news. Moreover, the good news points to a new kind of better strategy for the US—or, more precisely, to the revival of a successful old strategy.

The story of US foreign policy since World War Two has primarily been the story of American efforts to counteract two evil “isms”: communism and Islamism. And over these last 70 years, the US has applied two different approaches to these threats: first, direct confrontation with enemies, in the form of American military units doing the actual fighting; and second, indirect confrontation, in the form of American support for other militaries, as they do the fighting instead. Today, the US, having recently tried the first approach and finding frustration, is increasingly reliant on the second approach, which is working better. President Obama didn’t plan for this, to be sure, but he nevertheless stumbled into it. As they say, “It’s better to be lucky than good.”

The first approach—Americans doing the fighting—was first tried in 1950, with the Korean War. In those days, the Truman administration had a previously declared policy of opposing communist expansion in the aftermath of World War Two. And so, for example, in the 1940s, we sent military aid to anti-communist forces in Greece, Turkey, and China. This policy succeeded in Greece and Turkey, although it failed in China.

And on June 25, 1950, when North Korea, aided by Mao’s China along with Stalin’s Soviet Union, invaded South Korea, it soon became clear that if the US didn’t immediately intervene militarily, all of South Korea would fall to the Reds. Hence what became known as the Truman Doctrine emerged: Uncle Sam would do whatever it took to keep a country from going communist, including “boots on the ground.”

In the Korean War, 1950-53, almost 34,000 Americans died in combat. Indeed, the public backlash against the Korean War derailed Truman’s presidency; in 1952, he was forced into retirement. The next president, Dwight Eisenhower, managed to end the Korean fighting. Ike also resisted calls to send US ground troops in a combat role to other countries, notably Vietnam, where the French colonialists were defeated in 1954. Ike was plenty anti-communist, but he judged that the Red threat didn’t justify an American combat role.

Yet in 1961, a new president, John F. Kennedy, restated the Truman Doctrine in his ringing inaugural address. Kennedy pledged an open-ended commitment to the anti-communist cause; as the 35th President declared, “We shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”

The result of this resonant rhetoric, of course, was an increasing US military commitment to South Vietnam. On the day that Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, some 16,000 American military personnel were in country, and nearly 200 had been killed in action. In other words, the American military commitment was clear enough in the Kennedy administration, and in the wake of his death, JFK’s policy was simply continued—even as it was escalated by his hand-picked successor in the White House, Lyndon B. Johnson.

So once again, the US found itself carrying out the tenets of the Truman Doctrine—that is, the direct involvement of US ground troops, if need be, in a faraway war. And once again, the war, which claimed the lives of more than 36,000 Americans during Johnson’s presidency, proved unpopular at home. Mostly because of the public backlash against this overseas fighting, Johnson, like Truman before him, was forced to retire in 1968.

In 1969, a new president, Richard Nixon, came into office with a mandate to end the war. Nixon had campaigned on a “secret plan” to stop the fighting and, in fact, he had one. His plan was to negotiate a deal with the patrons of the North Vietnamese, China and the USSR. Yet in the meantime, Nixon outlined what became known as the Nixon Doctrine, which held that the US would always send aid to countries resisting communism—but what was left out was the part about committing US troops. That is, Nixon amended the Truman Doctrine; as he said many times in those days, it simply wasn’t possible for the US to be the policeman of the world—with US help, countries would have to police themselves.

The Truman Doctrine and the Nixon Doctrine had the same goals, but the Nixon Doctrine was more modest. And because it was less costly in terms of blood, it was more politically sustainable.

As noted, Nixon had a strategy for ending America’s direct participation in the Vietnam War, while yet not losing the war: He called it “peace with honor.” Nixon negotiated over the heads of the North Vietnamese; the 37th President traveled to both Beijing and Moscow in 1972 to seal the deal. The result was Chinese and Russian acquiescence, as the US expanded the bombing of North Vietnam in order to force the final negotiations. This bombing bore fruit: The North Vietnamese signed a peace agreement in 1973. Indeed, Nixon’s top diplomat, Henry Kissinger, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize later that year. In the wake of the peace deal, Nixon intended to use military aid—the Nixon Doctrine—to guarantee the terms and so preserve the independence of South Vietnam.

However, Nixon was driven from office by the Watergate scandal in 1974, and, after that, the ascendant Democrats in Congress felt no obligation to maintain his Vietnam policy. Indeed, it’s fair to say that many Democratic doves couldn’t wait to cut off aid to South Vietnam, as a way of registering their contempt for the last vestige of Nixon’s policy. And so in 1975, South Vietnam collapsed, and leading Democrats were jubilant. The obvious defeatism of many Democrats became a big issue in the 1980 presidential election—the one in which Ronald Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter.

In the 1980s, President Reagan revived the Nixon Doctrine, but not the Truman Doctrine. Under the leadership of our 40th President, the US was fully committed to opposing communist regimes around the world, from Nicaragua to Angola to Poland to Afghanistan. And yet Reagan always resisted using American forces in a combat role; as far as the US military itself was concerned, the Cold War would stay cold. The result was a huge success: American aid helped defeat or unravel communist regimes from Central America to Central Asia. Soon, the Berlin Wall fell, and then the Soviet Union itself collapsed.

Yet even as the struggle against communism ended in an American victory, the struggle against Islamism began to heat up.

In 1991, President George H.W. Bush revived the Truman Doctrine; he sent more than half a million US troops to participate in Operation Desert Storm, which ejected the invading Iraqis from Kuwait. Bush 41 deliberately limited American military objectives—that is, no “regime change”—so US casualties were minimal.

Later in the 1990s, President Bill Clinton, himself a non-participant in Vietnam, became more aggressive in pursuing new military ventures. The 1993 “Blackhawk Down” incident in Somalia was part of a failed attempt at “nation building.” And, curiously, the various US interventions in the former Yugoslavia later in the decade were aimed mostly at actually helping to protect and emancipate Muslim populations.

Then beginning in 2001, President George W. Bush, another non-participant in Vietnam, loudly proclaimed the revival of the Truman Doctrine—that is, the direct use of US troops—even if he didn’t use those precise words. And Bush, of course, added some additional rhetoric about the importance freedom as an end in itself. For their part, while Truman and Kennedy had talked in generalities about “freedom,” they never worried very much whether or not, say, South Korea or South Vietnam were free countries: if they were American allies against communism, that was good enough.

Still, it is useful to compare the open-ended language of George W. Bush to the open-ended language of John F. Kennedy, 44 years earlier. In 1961, Kennedy had declared, “We shall pay any price… in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” And in 2005, Bush echoed that ambitious tone when he declared, “It is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.”

The US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq were military successes, at least at first, but over time, the success seemed to dissipate as American casualties mounted. Yes, the US military could score military gains, but it never could be effective at its political aims. Indeed, the mere presence of US troops in a combat role seemed to galvanize opposition in occupied countries—the Muslim equivalent of Yanqui go home!

Moreover, the innate improbability of bringing Western-style freedom to Muslim countries was underscored by a 2013 Pew Center survey of Muslim populations across the world, which found that, for example, 99 percent of the people of Afghanistan support the imposition of Islamic Sharia law in that country, while 91 percent of Iraqis and 84 percent of Pakistanis support Sharia for their countries. In other words, Sharia-minded Islamists are likely to win even the freest elections—and that means, of course, no freedom.

Indeed, even the staunchest supporters of Bush 43 policies have to concede that public anger over Iraq contributed mightily to the Democrats’ success in the 2006 and 2008 elections. It might even be fair to say that Barack Obama’s rise to power—having bested two relative hawks, Hillary Clinton and John McCain, in the primary campaign and in the general election—was directly attributable to public antagonism to Bush war policies. In other words, Bush + Revived Truman Doctrine = Obama.

For his part, Obama’s situation upon taking office in 2009 might be compared to Nixon’s situation back in 1969. Yes, the enemy had changed, from communism to Islamism. Still, in both cases, the new president faced the challenge of winding down a war waged by an unpopular predecessor from Texas.

Yet Obama followed a much different approach than had Nixon. Whereas Nixon sought to preserve the US position in Vietnam, albeit without the expenditure of American blood, Obama sought to liquidate the US position in Iraq. And that’s what he did: Obama wanted out, period; in 2010, the last US troops of Operation Iraqi Freedom were withdrawn.

The result of this precipitous withdrawal, as we know, was debacle: ISIS filled the vacuum and took over much of Iraq in 2014. Today, operating from parts of Syria, too, ISIS has brought the Middle East to a new level of media-savvy savagery; the videos of beheadings and burnings have sent shock waves of fear and loathing around the globe.

Indeed, because ISIS is so awful, a new factor has entered into the geopolitics of the Middle East: There is now significant armed opposition to ISIS within the Arab world.

Whereas the Bush administration’s high hopes about the democratization of the Middle East proved illusory in the last decade, in this decade, ISIS depredations have caused a furious backlash in, most notably, Jordan. Today, a vengeful Jordan pledges “a continued process to eliminate [ISIS] and wipe them out completely.” Moreover, Jordan’s King Abdullah, always a friend to the West and more recently a fierce ISIS opponent, is probably more popular than ever. Indeed, it seems that he now defines a new style of Arab military heroism.

Today, with US help, Jordan is now actively engaged against ISIS. Indeed, other Arab countries, too, are helping in the effort, including Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. In other words, the Nixon Doctrine is back: We are providing aid to the countries that are doing the fighting that serves our strategic interests. Indeed, with enough American aid, it’s even possible that the anti-ISIS coalition could roll back the murderous Islamists.

Of course, none of these allied countries are democracies, or anything close, but that hardly seems to matter. The US saw what it was like, for example, in 2011 when Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood won a national election; America’s interests, after all, are much better served by the autocratic generals now ruling in Cairo.

Once again, this wasn’t the planned policy of the Obama administration, but it is what has come to pass. As noted, it’s better to be lucky than good. And President Obama has, in fact, lucked out: He has stumbled into a rediscovery of the Nixon Doctrine. Or, more precisely, the Nixon Doctrine has rediscovered him.

Video of the Month
February 3, 2015 Via Intellectual Froglegs dot Com

(Best viewed with a good set of headphones. Enjoy. – LS)

Here’s The Reason Valerie Jarrett Is Scared Of Benjamin Netanyahu
L. Todd Wood — February 2, 2015 Via Western Journalist dot Com

(Mr. Wood brings up an interesting point. Hopefully, Mr. Netanyahu will shed some light on this possibility. – LS)

We have all seen the White House’s reaction to House Speaker John Boehner inviting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak before Congress on the Iranian nuclear situation. The Obama administration has completely freaked out, lobbing public barrages against Netanyahu and Boehner for “going around the White House and diplomatic protocol.” This is quite humorous for the president who famously said “I have a pen and a phone and can do anything I want”–but that’s for another column.

I’ve written about the Obama administration’s agenda when dealing with Iran. The agenda is to run out the clock and allow Iran to develop, or be on the verge of developing, a nuclear weapon that would threaten the entire Middle East and the world. Israel would especially be in danger.

The real questions are: Who is pushing this agenda? Who is pushing for Iran to go nuclear? And, who is so scared of Netanyahu briefing Congress and the American people on what Iran is up to?

The answer is Valerie Jarrett, Obama’s Rasputin. This is where the anger from the White House is coming from.

Most people know she was born in Iran. This in itself does not disqualify her from advising the president, but it does open her agenda to scrutiny. There have been reports that she has been secretly negotiating with Iran on the nuclear issue, but the White House has vehemently denied it.

I, for one, don’t trust a thing this administration says.

Now, the Jerusalem Post is reporting that the Obama administration has already given Iran eighty percent of what it has demanded in the negotiations.  The “deal” to be reached will leave Iran within months of going nuclear if they decide to move forward. All of the centrifuges will remain under their control.

Hezbollah Attack Seen as Effort by Iran to ‘Expand into the Golan Heights’
by TheTower.org Staff 01.29.15 10:14 am

(They are in for a surprise if they think Israel will let them take the high ground. – LS)

Hezbollah operatives fired Kornet anti-tank missiles at an Israeli army patrol along the Israel-Lebanon border on Wednesday, killing two Israeli soldiers, wounding seven, and prompting Israeli retaliatory artillery fire on southern Lebanon. A Spanish peacekeeper of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) was killed in the exchange of fire. Mortars were launched into northern Israel from southern Lebanon for over an hour after the initial attack.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah declared on January 15 that Hezbollah would “enter into Galilee and…go even beyond the Galilee.” There was a reported Israeli airstrike on January 18, which killed six Hezbollah members and several personnel from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), including senior commanders.

On Tuesday, at least two rockets were fired at the northern Golan Heights from Syria, in an attack attributed by the IDF to Hezbollah. IDF artillery fired on Syrian military targets and the Israeli Air Force (IAF) launched overnight air strikes on artillery positions of the Syrian military.

Hezbollah took responsibility for Wednesday’s attack, claiming that it was carried out by the “righteous martyrs of Quneitra.”

Some analysts have suggested that the attack was not just retaliation for the January 18 airstrike, but rather is part of a broader strategic shift by Hezbollah, as it attempts to build a terror infrastructure in the Golan Heights. Tony Badran, a Research Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said in a conference call hosted by The Israel Project (audio link) on Wednesday that Hezbollah’s attacks are indicative of a broader “Iranian effort to expand into the Golan Heights.”

Doing so, Iran and Hezbollah hope, would allow Hezbollah to “target Israel from the Golan Heights while avoiding devastation in Lebanon.” Hezbollah views the Shebaa Farms, the area in which Wednesday’s attack occurred, and the Golan as “a singular theater of operations.”

By responding sharply, Israel is demonstrating that “the buck stops here” and that “Iran will not be allowed to set up shop in the Golan Heights.”

The Israel Project is publisher of The Tower.

[Photo: Associated Press / YouTube]

Iran Targets Netanyahu Children for Assassination
BY: Adam Kredo January 29, 2015 5:00 am Via The Washington Free Beacon

(A new low for Tehran and their surrogates. – LS)

IRGC-tied site urges ‘hunt’ after Hezbollah strike

Iran is encouraging its terror allies to pursue the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s children by publishing personal information about them, including photographs of the kids lined up in crosshairs, and declaring, “We must await the hunt of Hezbollah.”

The publication of the personal information and biographies of Netanyahu’s children follows an Israeli airstrike last week that killed several key Hezbollah leaders and an Iranian commander affiliated with the country’s hardline Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Iranian military leaders affiliated with the IRGC threatened in recent days harsh retaliation for the strike and promised to amp up support for Hezbollah as well as Palestinian terrorist organizations.

The information was originally published in Farsi by an Iranian website affiliated with the IRGC and quickly republished by Iran’s state-controlled Fars News Agency.

In addition to biographical details and pictures of Netanyahu’s children, the Iranians provided details about the families of former prime ministers Ehud Olmert and Ariel Sharon.

Regional experts with knowledge of the IRGC said this type of public threat is meant to intimidate the Israelis and act as a deterrent against possible military action.

“Here, we have organized a list of prominent Israeli Aghazadehs,” or children, according to the original post by the hardline Iranian website Mashregh, which has since removed the article. The Fars reproduction is still available online in Farsi.

Netanyahu’s children are acceptable targets for assassination due to their affiliation with top Israeli leaders, according to the article, which is titled, “The file of the Zionist Children.”

“It is worth mentioning that these excellences of Zionism were not directly involved in the war against the forces of resistance and they have not taken up arms, and some [even] by account of their own words are against Zionist radicalism,” the post states, according to an independent translation of the Farsi.

“However, they have three years of mandatory service in the army of this regime in their records,” it states. “At any rate, acquaintance with the lives of these persons and their traits provides for a more realistic understanding of the social and political issues of the regime in Israel.”

In bright red letters, an order is then issued: “We must await the hunt of Hezbollah.”

Following this, the article contains detailed biographies and pictures of Netanyahu’s children, Avner and Yair. Similar profiles of Olmert’s son, Shaul, and Sharon’s children, Gilad and Omri, also are provided.

Behnam Ben Taleblu, an Iran expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), said that while extreme, this type of tactic is common for Iran.

“Mashregh News has chosen to explicitly demonstrate that deterrent power in a sickening retaliatory fashion, weighing the perceived benefits of some of the assassinations from the perspective of the ‘resistance,’” Taleblu said.

“In a not-so-subtle manner, the article attempts to force a linkage between the reported ‘mandatory military service’ of the children and becoming a target,” he said. “The question now becomes, will Hezbollah or Iran choose to escalate from this appalling form of psychological warfare?”

Iran’s move to assist with the assassination of these high-profile kids jibes with statements made over the last week by IRGC leaders in the wake of Israel’s deadly airstrike.

“The experience of the past shows that the resistance current will give a crushing response to the Zionist regime’s terrorist moves with revolutionary determination and in due time and place,” Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), was quoted as saying last week.

Other top military leaders promised to hit Israel with “devastating thunderbolts” and work for the “collapse of the Zionist regime.”

“The IRGC will remain steadfast on the path to the collapse of the Zionist regime of Israel through its continued support for the Lebanese and Palestinian combatants, but this time its supports will be on a scale larger than its supports during the 33-day and 51-day wars against the Israeli army,” Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, an IRGC commander, was quoted as saying last week.

The IRGC also issued a statement on Wednesday celebrating a terror attack by Hezbollah on Israeli soldiers that left two dead and at least seven more seriously wounded.

“We will stand by the resistance against the Zionists,” the IRGC was quoted as saying in a tweet by the Lebanese news outlet Naharnet.

These numerous statements indicate that while Iran backs reprisals on Israel, it is hesitant to take its own action, according to FDD’s Taleblu.

“All the outpouring and statements by Iran’s political and military elite is meant to establish the deterrent power of the Islamic Republic,” he said. “Such power is designed to instill the fear of reprisal, without having to bear the costs of engaging in one.”

Netanyahu: Iran’s hand was behind the Hizballah attack from Lebanon
DEBKAfile January 29, 2015

( Be strong and courageous. Don’t fear or tremble before them, because the LORD your God will be the one who keeps on walking with you—he won’t leave you or abandon you. – Deut. 31:6 –  JW )

(Bibi sounds the alarm once again. – LS)

The day after two Israeli soldiers were killed in a Hizballah attack from Mt Dov, PM Binyamin Netanyahu accused Iran of its orchestration without elaborating. In that country, even “moderates” speak of destroying Israel and the Jewish people, he said Thursday at a ceremony commemorating the late prime minister Ariel Sharon.

“I am committed to the struggle against a nuclear-armed Iran. For years, I have mustered support among all those who care about Israel’s future.” Netanyahu went on to say: “There is still time to stop the ayatollahs gaining weapons of mass destruction. We are not afraid to stand up and fight the dangerous nuclear agreement taking shape between the world powers and Iran, or speaking out against it. “

He reiterated: “Israel will never accept an accord of appeasement that permits Iran to continue its race for a nuclear bomb. We reserve the right to do everything in our power to stop the extremist regime in Tehran from arming itself with a nuclear bomb.”