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| Netanyahu looks up at the gallery in honor of Elie Wiesel. (Bergeron Screen Shot) |
Tuesday morning, the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin
Netanyahu, delivered an address to a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress.
He expressed his deep reservations about the nature and
risks of a nuclear agreement being negotiated between the Islamic Republic of
Iran and the United States by Secretary of State John Kerry on behalf of
President Barack Obama.
These talks are aimed at slowing – not halting – Iran’s
march towards the development, acquisition and stockpiling of nuclear weapons,
a goal that Iran’s leadership steadfastly maintains it has the right to do.
After carefully listening to Netanyahu’s message in its
entirety and to his firm objections to the terms and conditions which he outlined
as being at the core of the negotiations underway, I am able to confidently
summarize our president’s offer to Iran in two short paragraphs:
Barack Obama to Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini:
You can have all the nukes you want – not
just yet, though. Your country needs to
wait 10 years. During that time, the
West will soften its sanctions on your economy.
At the end of this proposed 10-year
agreement during which you will have agreed not to ramp up your nuclear
capability, all sanctions and restrictions will be removed. Then, you are free to go ahead and knock
yourself out – build as many nukes as you like.
No one in the White House has denied the sum and substance
of Netanyahu’s passionately firm admonitions about the contents of the proposed
deal with Iran.
It simply kicks the can down the road, well beyond the next
22 months after which the president will be out of office and on the golf links
sharpening his skills.
Should this one-sided agreement be enacted by President
Barack Obama – he in on track to bypass Congress – he will have placed an
insuperable burden upon the next chief executive in the White House.
Iran is led by a regime consisting of an aggressive, expansion-minded
group of leaders. It is situated smack-dab
in the tinderbox of the Middle East.
In a decade – a blink of an eye in the march of nations – it
will be armed to the teeth with nukes. Netanyahu is concerned that they will be
mounted on the tip of intermediate and intercontinental missiles aimed at
Iran’s foes, real or perceived.
In his remarks to the U.S. Congress, Netanyahu resolved that
Iran cannot be permitted to carry out its threat to “wipe
Israel off the map.”
“Never again,” he said. “Those days when
Jewish people remain passive are over . . . We are no longer
scattered . . . we Jewish people can defend ourselves . . . even if Israel has
to stand alone . . . Israel will stand . . .”
Who – if anyone – at 1600
Pennsylvania Avenue is listening?
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