“The greater danger is not that Iran will rush to a single bomb by breaking the deal, but that Iran will be able to build many bombs by keeping the deal”, Netanyahu said in his UN General Assembly speech in NY.
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“Only Trump can speak for 40 minutes about destroying a country… and eventually claim that he is fighting for peace”, the above tweet reads.
Trump said that the world could not let a “murderous regime” continue to destabilise the Middle East while also “building risky missiles” and that the United States “cannot abide by an agreement if it provides cover for the eventual construction of a nuclear programme”.
Another former US ambassador to the U.N., John Bolton, disagreed.
The future of the accord, which caps Iranian nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief, has been at risk since Trump took office in January. Trump similarly connected the dots between the “reckless” and “rogue regimes” of Iran and North Korea “that violate every principle on which the United Nations is based”.
President Rouhani also said that direct flight between capitals of the two countries can have a positive effect on tourism and strengthen relations between the people of Iran and Bulgaria. He called the idea a “nonstarter”.
Majid Sadeghpour, the political director of the Organization of Iranian American communities (OIAC), wrote in an op-ed for Townhall: “The worldwide reach of these protests should be loud and clear”.
Heinonen argued, for example, that it is a “valid question” whether Tehran is abiding by the cap on its heavy-water stockpile of 130 metric tons when it allegedly still owns many tons more that have been shipped to Oman and stored there, awaiting buyers.
“We can’t afford to have a nuclear Iran and a nuclear North Korea”. And he agreed that the sunset provision should be “revisited”, rather than “just kicking the can down the road”.
He also emphasized that any move on the part of Washington to renege on the nuclear agreement with Iran, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), indicates that the United States can not be trusted and has no perspective at all on the past, present or future.
Netanyahu also used to address to talk up Israel’s diplomatic credentials, while threatening Iran with potential action.
Clues to the USA stance might emerge on Wednesday when the seven parties to the agreement are to meet, marking the first time Tillerson and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif are to meet in the same room. Trump mentioned the word “sovereign” and its derivatives 21 times on Tuesday, the first day of this year’s General Assembly in NY. Trump reviewed this approach with his advisers last Friday.
Speaking in NY after a meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Trump responded to a reporter’s question about whether a decision had been made about the future of the deal.
His chief diplomat, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, went further, telling Fox News that the agreement must be changed or the United States could not stick with it.
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Long term, Netanyahu and Israel may not be as enthused by Trump’s dream of a world in which nations make a priority of “sovereign” interests – or as the president put it, repeating a campaign phrase that unsettled many U.S. Jews, “America First”.
