Netanyahu Hated The Iran Deal. Now He's Taking Credit For It.

[Purveyor]

Back in September 2015, two months after the historic Iranian nuclear deal was finally struck, Jeffrey Goldberg wrote in The Atlantic that the international agreement to restrain Iran’s nuclear program “should count as the crowning diplomatic achievement of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.“ Counter-intuitive, yes – but also prescient.

Recognizing that “Netanyahu, of course, doesn’t see this agreement as a victory for Israel; he sees it as a victory for evil,” Goldberg sought to “highlight a public path Netanyahu could have chosen.“ As Goldberg suggested, instead of slamming the agreement in addresses to the US Congress and the UN, Netanyahu could hold up the deal as “the first time Iran has agreed to radically curtail its previously unregulated nuclear activities” – and claim that would not have happened without sustained pressure from Israel.

Perhaps Bibi, as he’s known, was reading.

As the agreement reached its “implementation day” with the removal of international sanctions following Iran’s compliance with the deal, Netanyahu was quick to credit Israeli efforts for preventing Tehran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. According to the Times of Israel, Netanyahu opened his weekly cabinet meeting by stating, “If it weren’t for our efforts leading the way in enforcing the sanctions on Iran’s nuclear program, Iran would have had a nuclear weapon long ago.”

Of course, that doesn’t mean Netanyahu is happy with the deal. Despite the support of many in Israel’s scientific and security communities, including a former Mossad chief, Netanyahu still sees the agreement as capitulating to a regime that, in his view, seeks to develop a nuclear weapon in the long term.

And according to Reuters, “Israel argues that the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran has been eclipsed, for the time being, by the threat of conflict with Lebanon’s Hezbollah and other guerrillas who now stand to get increased funding from Tehran,” a concern also shared by Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states.

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