Bibi: Nuke Deal ‘Didn’t Block Iran’s Path to the Bomb; It Paved it’

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu harshly criticized the 2015 nuclear deal signed with Iran and called on Europe to take actions against the country after it announced it had breached the terms of the agreement.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed Monday that Iran had increased its uranium enrichment levels, violating the nuclear agreement.

Netanyahu spoke via satellite with Pastor John Hagee at the CUFI (Christians United for Israel) conference in Washington DC on Monday and charged that “the deal was always based on a lie: that Iran was not seeking nuclear weapons.”

Israel “exposed the lie” when it sent Mossad operatives to bring back a trove of more than 100,000 documents on Iran’s nuclear program from a secret warehouse in southern Tehran, Netanyahu said. The documents include classified maps, charts, photographs, blueprints, videos, and more documenting the Islamic Republic’s program called Project Amad. The documents show that Iran has been working on developing atomic bombs as early as 20 years ago.

“The deal is not only based on a lie, it’s a terrible deal because it gave Iran a path to getting a nuclear arsenal when the restrictions on Iran’s nuclear programs were removed. It didn’t block Iran’s path to the bomb; it paved it,” he charged.

While the deal did not remove the nuclear threat, it created other problems by removing sanctions on Iran, “thereby helping Iran fuel its war machine in the region. Iran got tens of billions of dollars, potentially hundreds of billions of dollars – to fund its aggression,” the Israeli premier explained.

He lauded President Donald Trump who “decided boldly to leave this bad deal, and he decided to restore sanctions. And Israel is deeply grateful for that, because this is vital for Israel’s security, for the security of the region, for the security of the United States, for the security of the world.”

He warned that “Iran is trying to lash out to reduce the pressure. They attack tankers, they down American drones, they’re firing missiles at their neighbors.”

“It’s important to respond to these actions not by reducing the pressure, but by increasing the pressure. We should stand up to Iran’s aggression now. And Europe should back the sanctions instituted by President Trump. We certainly did,” he concluded.

Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations (UN) Danny Danon spoke at the same venue and noted that Iran’s breach of the nuclear agreement “was no surprise to those of us who never bought the fiction that the Iranian regime wanted to normalize its behavior.”

Danon called on the European leaders to “wake up before it is too late and to stop the terrorist regime. Their restraint only serves to encourage Tehran to pursue its dangerous ambitions.”

He also called on the UN’s Security Council to convene and reapply the sanctions regime. “We must never allow the Iranian regime to terrorize its people or the world ever again!” he declared.

(TPS)