Itongadol.- Washington’s approach to the fluid situation in Iraq should be to try and simultaneously weaken both Iran and the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Sunday in his first public comments about the situation there.
Netanyahu, speaking on NBC’s Meet the Press, said that both the radical Shi’ites,led by Iran, and the radical Sunnis, led by al-Qaida and ISIS, are both enemies of the US. “When your enemies are fighting each other, don\’t strengthen either one of them. Weaken both,” he said.
Asked whether he thought American airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq, something currently under consideration, would strengthen Iran, Netanyahu advocated a dual course of action.
“One is to take the actions that you deem necessary to counter the ISIS takeover of Iraq,” he said. “And the second is not to allow Iran to dominate Iraq the way it dominated Lebanon and Syria. So you actually have to work on both sides. As I say, you try to weaken both. There are actions that could be taken.”
He refrained, however, from giving specific suggestions.
In an apparent reference to concern that the US and Iran may cooperate, something that could conceivably lead to less western vigilance to keep Iran from gaining nuclear arms, Netanyahu said that the worst outcome by far would be that Iran “would come out with nuclear weapons capability.”
“That would be a tragic mistake,” he said. “It will make everything else pale in comparison. I think the ultimate and the most important goal in the Middle East is to make sure Iran does not have nuclear weapons capability because those weapons, unlike mortars and machine guns that can kill thousands and chemical weapons that kill tens of thousands, these weapons – nuclear weapons – could kill millions. That should be prevented at all cost.”
Asked directly if he is concerned that the US is softening its negotiating stance vis-a-vis Iran to get Tehran’s help on Iraq, Netanyahu responded that “I hope they don’t come up with a bad deal.”
He then went on to describe what a “good deal” on Iran would look like, saying in praise of US President Barack Obama that “a good deal is actually what was negotiated by the United States and President Obama in the case of the chemical weapons in Syria. You haven\’t solved the problem in Syria between Sunnis and Shi\’ites, but you did remove the bulk of the weapons and soon all of the weapons, and the stockpiles. You removed them.”
By contrast, he said, what was currently being discussed with Iran was removing most of the economic sanctions, and allowing Iran to keep most of its capabilities, including stockpiles of enriched uranium and the ability to manufacture nuclear weapons.
“That\’s a terrible mistake,” he said. “I hope it doesn\’t come to pass because I think this would change history. It would be a monumental mistake. In the context of the world at large and the Middle East as it is today, this would be a tragic, tragic outcome.”