Itongadol.- Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu\’s threats of military action against Iranian nuclear sites, combined with the pressure of harsh Western sanctions that crippled the Iranian economy, might have helped bring the Islamic Republic to the negotiating table, US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said, according to a Bloomberg report on Monday.
“It’s true that sanctions – not just US sanctions but UN sanctions, multilateral sanctions – have done tremendous economic damage,” Hagel told Jeffrey Goldberg last week.
"And I think that Iran is responding to the constant pressure from Israel, knowing that Israel believes them to be an existential threat. I think all of this, combined, probably brought the Iranians to where we are today," he said.
"Whether the Iranians will carry forth on that, we’ll see."
Secretary of State John Kerry said last week that the US would not "succumb to fear tactics" of those who oppose diplomacy, in what could be construed as a reference to Netanyahu\’s warnings to the world against Iran\’s "charm offensive."
Unlike Kerry, Hagel asserted that Netanyahu is "legitimately concerned, as any prime minister of Israel has been, about the future security needs of their country" and that he did not think Netanyahu was trying to intentionally sabotage the talks.
429