Netanyahu: The more one looks at the Iran accord, the worse it looks/Israel yet to receive all annexes of Iran nuclear deal/Carter: Successful Iran nuclear deal better than strike

Netanyahu: The more one looks at the Iran accord, the worse it looks
HERB KEINON/J.Post/07/30/2015/The more one looks at the Iranian nuclear agreement, the worse it looks, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday. “The more you know about the accord, the more you oppose it,” he said during a briefing with diplomatic reporters in which he passionately argued against the agreement. Netanyahu said that it was clear that the accord paved two paths for Iran to a bomb. The first is if Iran abides by the agreement, and within 10-15 years will be able — without any breakout time at all — to build dozens of bombs. The other path is if it violates the accord and will be able to build one or two bombs within a decade. “Just because we identify existential threats does not mean we will give in to them,” Netanyahu said. “Without our efforts, Iran would already have had a nuclear weapon. This agreement is terrible, it would have been preferable had there been no agreement, rather than this one.”Netanyahu stepped away from the briefing momentarily to speak for about 30 minutes with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Netanyahu said the call dealt with Iran, regional issues, and bilateral ties. The Kremlin put out a readout of the call, saying that it was initiated by Netanyahu, and that they had a “comprehensive discussion on the situation in the Middle East.”According to the Kremlin, Putin said that the nuclear deal “envisages reliable guarantees of the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program.” Putin expressed confidence that the deal will “strengthen the nuclear non-proliferation regime and “have a positive impact on security and stability in the Middle east. Putin also stressed the “need for joint efforts by all parties concerned to combat the threats from the Islamic State terrorist group.”

Israel yet to receive all annexes of Iran nuclear deal, says NSC advisor
Ynetnews/Itamar Eichner/Published: 7.29.15/Israel News/Israeli officials following the US Senate hearing on the Iran deal were shocked to learn about classified details of the agreement, of which the had no previous knowledge. Israel has not received all the details of the nuclear deal between Iran and the powers, National Security Advisor Yossi Cohen said Wednesday. Cohen was speaking before the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. “In contrast to the promises we have heard, Israel has yet to receive all of the annexes of the Iran deal,” he said.This is not the first time in which members of Israel’s defense establishment have complained that Israel was not given all of the agreement’s details. After a hearing in the US Senate on the Iran deal, an Israeli minister claimed that the fact that US Senators were not afraid to publicly question issues regarding the classified elements of the deal “showed that they wanted to sound the alarm on the bad deal.” Officials in Israel followed the hearing closely, and were shocked when classified portions of the deal were exposed, of which the US did not officially notify Israel. One of the classified annexes revealed that Iran would collect its own samples from the Parchin site. Officials in Jerusalem were quick to label the annex as resounding proof of the deal’s weak nature, that it was a “historic mistake,” and that the Iranians had cheated the US and other world powers. “Not only do the Iranians get 24 days to clean up their sites, but it seems that they don’t even need to be worried, because they are the ones collecting the samples. That means they are alloweing the Iranians to fake the samples, and there is no way to discover violations. The meaning is that there won’t be real inspections,” a high ranking official said. An Israeli analysis of the deal also noted that the deal does not prevent Iran from testing ballistic missiles. “The time that has passed since the deal’s signing continues to expose the amount of risk the West has taken upon itself, and its flexibility in making unprecedented concessions towards the tyrannical Iranian regime,” Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said. “As time passes, we can see that the deal places the Western world at unprecedented and severe risk, in the face of an ambitious and unstoppable terror-based regime, which won’t hesitate to act against, and from within, the same states with which it signed this bad agreement.”

Carter: Successful Iran nuclear deal better than strike
Associated Press/Ynetnews/Published: 7.30.15/ Israel News
WASHINGTON – Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Wednesday that the US armed forces stand ready to confront Iran, but told lawmakers that a successful implementation of the nuclear agreement with Tehran is preferable to a military strike.
Carter, Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and three members of President Barack Obama’s Cabinet testified at a committee hearing as part of the White House’s aggressive campaign to convince Congress to back the Iranian nuclear deal, which calls on Iran to curb its nuclear program in exchange for billions of dollars in sanctions relief. Carter said there is a possibility that the nuclear agreement will move forward, but will not be “successfully implemented.””That’s why we are under instructions from the president to preserve, and indeed we are improving – and I can’t get into that here – the military option,” Carter said. “Temporary as it is, it needs to be there because that’s our fall back.”
At the same time, Carter said that the successful implementation of the agreement would be better than taking military action because a strike would be temporary and likely would make Iran “irreconcilably resigned” to getting a nuclear weapon.Dempsey added that implementation of the nuclear deal actually strengthens the military option because with enhanced inspections and access to sites in Iran, the US would be able to obtain more knowledge about nuclear sites “that we might strike.”Congress, which has begun a 60-day review of the deal, is expected to vote in September. If the Republican-controlled Congress passes a resolution of disapproval for the deal, Obama has said he will veto it. The administration is hoping to secure the backing of Democrats to sustain the veto.
On Tuesday, the White House won the backing of Democratic Rep. Sander Levin, a Jewish lawmaker from Michigan. His support was critical because Iran has threatened to destroy Israel.
But underscoring the hard-fought gains and losses, New York Rep. Grace Meng, a Democratic member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, came out against the deal on Wednesday. She said the inspections protocols in the agreement are “flawed” and that she’s concerned that Iran’s nuclear infrastructure will remain intact.
“This leads me to believe Iran would simply resume its pursuit of a nuclear weapon at the conclusion of the deal in a decade’s time,” Meng said, adding that she also fears the sanctions relief will give Iran more money to fund terrorism.
Nicholas Burns, former undersecretary of state for political affairs and ambassador to NATO, met with House Democrats at the invitation of Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat who is leading the effort to round up Democratic support for the deal. House Democrats also were scheduled to meet with Obama at the White House later in the day. At a breakfast with reporters before the hearing, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew, who also testified, said he believed the White House would gain enough support in Congress to sustain a veto if Congress votes to reject the Iran nuclear deal. There would be sufficient support – “enough for this to be sustained,” he said – if Congress rejects the agreement and Obama vetoes the resolution of disapproval. Secretary of State John Kerry, the lead negotiator of the deal, tried to allay the concerns of Republican senators who complained that they are being asked to vote on the Iran nuclear deal without being privy to verification documents being separately negotiated by international nuclear inspectors.
“That is absolutely astounding,” said Sen. John McCain, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Iran, he said, has a “clear record of cheating.” Kerry said there is no side deal or secret agreements between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency. There are, however, technical documents that are standard practice and not released publicly.
“We are aware of what the basics of it are,” Kerry told the committee members. “It is standard procedure for 189 counties that have an agreement with the IAEA. … We don’t get that. It is not shared with the world, but we do get briefed on it.”