JERUSALEM, Israel – Fresh off his second meeting with President Donald Trump and days before critical talks between the U.S. and Iran, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu summed up his White House visit.
He said the U.S. and Israel talked extensively about Iran’s nuclear program.
“We agree that Iran will not have nuclear weapons,” Netanyahu stated. “This can be done in an agreement, but only if this agreement is on the Libyan model, where you go in, blow up the facilities, dismantle all the equipment, under American supervision, American execution.”
The Libyan model refers to when former Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi agreed to dismantle his nuclear program. If Iran doesn’t take that option, there are others.
Netanyahu explained, “The second option is that this won’t happen, that they will just drag out the talks, and then the option is military. Everyone understands that. We discussed that at length.”
The concern for many in Israel is that Iran may use the upcoming direct talks this Saturday to drag out the talks and buy more time as it gets closer to the nuclear threshold.
Some believe Netanyahu and his team were taken by surprise in Washington when told the U.S. was holding direct talks with Iran, Israel’s most formidable enemy.
On Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt warned Iran.
“If they don’t choose to move forward with diplomacy and a deal, which is the direction we do see them headed in, there will be grave consequences,” she cautioned.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi told Trump to lay off the military threats to Iran lest he end up dragging the U.S. into another costly and nearly endless war.
As Aragchi put it, “We cannot imagine President Trump wanting to become another US president mired in a catastrophic war in the Middle East – a conflict that would quickly extend across the region and cost exponentially more than the trillions of taxpayer dollars that his predecessors burned in Afghanistan and Iraq.”
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On Tuesday, President Trump’s nominee to be Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, commented that Iran had better take Trump seriously because “He’s not kidding around.”
In his first term, Trump put such heavy financial pressure on the Iranian regime that, as Huckabee put it, “He doggone near bankrupted them.”
Economic pressure is better than bombing, Huckabee suggested, explaining, “When the president dealt with them before, he didn’t bomb them, he bankrupted them, and that’s a more effective strategy.”
Huckabee is one step closer to becoming the next ambassador after the Senate voted 53-46 to advance his nomination. He now awaits a final confirmation vote.
