Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lashed out at critics who say that a nuclear Iran would “stabilize the Middle East” and warned President Barack Obama that the country’s leadership is guided by the same “fanaticism you see storming your embassies today.”
In an interview that aired on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, Netanyahu insisted that Obama should get tougher with Iran.
“Iran is guided by a leadership with an unbelievable fanaticism,” he told host David Gregory in the recorded interview. “It’s the same fanaticism that you see storming your embassies today. Do you want these fanatics to have nuclear weapons?”
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Asked whether Iran had already crossed his red line, Netanyahu insisted that Iran is in the “red zone” for being able to develop a nuclear weapon and he estimated that the regime is six months away “from being about 90 percent of having enriched uranium for an atom bomb.”
The Israeli prime minister repeated calls to impose a so-called red line on Iran “before it’s too late” and he used a football analogy to put the issue in perspective.
“You know they are in the last 20 yards. And you can’t let them cross that goal line,” he said. “You can’t let them score a touchdown because that would have unbelievable consequences, grievous consequences for the peace and security of us all, of the world really.”
Responding to the interview, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice insisted that Obama’s red line “has been that Iran will not acquire a nuclear weapon and we will take no option off the table to insure that it does not acquire a nuclear weapon, including a military option.”
She said that Iran has not yet crossed that line, adding “there is time and space for the pressure we are mounting which is unprecedented in terms of sanctions to still yield results” and she insisted “this is not imminent. The window is not infinite.”
She said that the sanctions imposed on Iran only reached a high point in July. “The Iranian economy is suffering. It’s shrinking for the first time, negative 1 percent growth,” she said. “The amount of production of Iranian oil has dropped 40 percent over the last several months. Their currency has plummeted 40 percent over the last several months. This pressure is — to use the Iranians’ own words — crippling."
Netanyahu also took aim at critics who believe that a nuclear Iran would help stabilize the troubled region.
“I’ve actually read this in the American press; they said well you know if you take action that’s a lot worse than having Iran with nuclear weapons,” insisted Netanyahu. “Some have even said that Iran with nuclear weapons would stabilize the Middle East.
“Stabilize the Middle East? I think the people who say this set a new standard for human stupidity,” Netanyahu snapped.
He added that Iran has suicide bombers “all over the place” and warned that “since the advent of nuclear weapons, you’ve had countries that had access to nuclear weapons, who always made a careful calculation of costs and benefits.”
With respect to Iran, Netanyahu warned, “I wouldn’t rely on their rationality.”
Netanyahu pointed to President Kennedy’s imposition of such a line during the Cuban missile crisis of the 1960s, a move that may have “purchased decades of peace” with the then Soviet Union.
In contrast, he said no such line was imposed prior to the Gulf War and Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, perhaps as a result.
“The issue as the prime minister of a country that is threatened with annihilation by a regime that is racing — a brutal regime in Tehran that is racing to develop nuclear bombs for that end — obviously we cannot delegate the job of stopping Iran if all else fails, to someone else.”
The prime minister sidestepped questions concerning the presidential election in the United States, saying the Iranian issue is not partisan.
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“I’m not going to be drawn into the American election, and what’s guiding my statements is not the American political calendar, but the Iranian nuclear calendar,” he stressed. “If they stopped spinning the centrifuges and took time off for the American elections I wouldn’t have to talk and I wouldn’t have to raise this issue.”
Appearing later on the “Today Show,” Gregory said that the ongoing events in the Middle East have shifted the focus of the U.S. presidential election away from the economy.
“From a pure political view I think this was an area of strength for President Obama that they thought could essentially be put away as there was more of a focus on the economy and contrasting president Obama with Governor Romney,” he said. “Now this question of American policy, accusations of American weakness in the Middle East; All those things are in play.”
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