Following is Home Front Defense and Communications Minister Gilad Erdan’s
response to today’s editorial in The New York Times
By Min Gilad Erdan
No country has more to lose than Israel if there is not a peaceful solution
to Iran’s nuclear weapons program. That is why Israel wants diplomacy with
Iran to succeed.
But success must be measured by what diplomacy achieves. The goal is to end
Iran’s nuclear weapons program. A deal should be a means to that end and not
an end in itself.
The deal on the table (the details of which have been widely reported) makes
more likely the very two outcomes its proponents seek to prevent – a
nuclear-armed Iran or the use of force against Iran’s nuclear weapons
infrastructure before it’s too late.
Some claim that the proposed deal will require Iran to freeze its nuclear
program for six months in exchange for mild sanctions relief. Neither
assumption will hold.
To freeze its program, Iran would not only have to stop the construction of
its plutonium-producing heavy water reactor and add no further centrifuges.
It would also have to halt all uranium enrichment, which Iran refuses to do.
An agreement that allows Iran to continue enrichment of material for nuclear
bombs while talks go on will not freeze Iran’s nuclear program.
Nor is the sanctions relief mild. Allowing the Iranian regime access to
billions of dollars would significantly ease the very pressure that has
brought Iran to the table in the first place. In a tanking economy like Iran’s,
these changes will make a big difference. The current sanctions regime took
years to put in place and is likely to fray quickly once the proposed deal
kicks in.
Thus this “first step” agreement would leave Iran closer to nuclear weapons
and under less pressure not to produce them.
If Iran refuses to dismantle centrifuges and its plutonium reactor and to
stop enrichment now, why would it agree to do so after the pressure on it
has been reduced?
If a deal this bad is the first step, what comes next?
President Obama has made it clear that he is determined to prevent Iran from
developing a nuclear weapon. Israel shares that goal.
To meet our common aim it is essential to dismantle Iran’s capability to
produce such weapons.
Sanctions should continue to increase for as long as Iran continues to
produce the infrastructure and fuel for nuclear weapons.
Anything less will make both Iran’s attainment of nuclear weapons and the
use of force to prevent it more likely.
We should find no comfort in this week’s International Atomic Energy Agency
report on Iran’s nuclear activities. Some try to downplay the IAEA’s
disturbing findings – that, contrary to six binding UN Security Council
resolutions, Iran continues to enrich and amass fissile material, work on
its heavy water reactor and deny inspectors access to facilities suspected
of housing nuclear weapons-related activities. Furthermore, a slowdown in
construction is meaningless when Iran already has all the infrastructure it
needs to make fissile material for the nuclear weapons it seeks.
Contrary to the New York Times editorial, this is precisely “the time to
squeeze Iran.” If the P5+1 do so and thereby succeed in reaching an
agreement that peacefully and genuinely ends Iran’s nuclear weapons program,
preventing it from becoming a threshold nuclear military power, we will all
have Prime Minister Netanyahu among others to thank for their vigilance.
This article states the obvious for all but the most willfully blind. Even Obama gets its all too well. In Obama’s muzloid mind, I have no doubt, the deal to be entered into is calculated to force Israel to strike as it is Obama’s fervent wish that Israel should be wiped off the map just as his Iranian co-coreligionists aspire to do.
He wants to paint BB as the spoiler and war monger who will be “seen” to deserve all the damage incurred to itself and be entirely responsible for the damage that results from such a strike.
@ CuriousAmerican:
I would venture that America is Iran’s primary target even over little Israel. EMP Attack over Iowa would put America back to the stone age.
One Rocket with one Nuke fired from a freighter would be undetectable and in-defendible. Big Satan and Little Satan. Little Satan has some missile defenses against ICBM attacks. America virtually none. If Iran misses us we incinerate Iran totally and they would pay for nothing. Easier and less threatening to hit America than Israel and the Madi comes out of the famous well.
I have always advocated ramping up sanctions against IRan.