Do you deal or do you threaten?
Jul 16, 2015, 6:16 AM | Updated: 6:26 am
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a press conference at his Jerusalem office on Tuesday, July 14, 2015. The nuclear deal with Iran could strike a heavy personal blow to Netanyahu, leaving him at odds with the international community and with few options for scuttling an agreement he has spent years trying to prevent. (AP Photo/Oren Ben Hakoon)
(AP Photo/Oren Ben Hakoon)
President Obama’s deal with Iran is in big trouble, and not just with Republicans. Democrats think he’s ignoring Israel’s warnings. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was on the evening news to argue that Barack Obama just gave Iran a concealed weapons license.
“This regime is building intercontinental ballistic missiles to reach every part of the United States,” Netanyahu told the press recently. “They already have missiles that reach us. They are building it for you.”
President Obama seems to think that if he can just explain the deal in enough detail, his critics will come around.
But Netanyahu says you can’t cut deals with rogue states like Iran — you must threaten them with force. And he is a very smart man — a graduate of Harvard and MIT; trained special forces commando; excellent communicator; sounds like your Uncle from Philadelphia.
And the Prime Minister could be right this time.
But he is not always right. In 2002 he was testifying in Washington as Congress was debating how to handle IRAQ’s nuclear program.
“If you take out Saddam’s regime, I guarantee that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region. And I think people sitting right next door in Iran, young people, and many others will say, ‘the time of such regimes of such despots is gone,'” Netanyahu said 13 years ago.
Now he could be right this time. But I can see how a president might be reluctant to take his advice.
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