Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned United Nations delegates Tuesday that to avoid a military conflict they must stand firm in putting pressure on Iran to open up its nuclear program to inspection.
"Iran wants to be in position to rush forward and build nuclear bombs before the world can prevent it," Netanyahu said, warning that recent gestures from Iran toward peace are a "ruse" to lull the West into backing off.
He said the "one big problem" that stands in the way of Iran's aims are the economic sanctions that the West has imposed to get Iran to prove its claim the its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. He warned that the sanctions must remain and be toughened if Iran is to be stopped.
"A nuclear armed Iran would have a choke-hold on the world's main energy supplies, it would trigger nuclear proliferation throughout the Middle East," he said. "It would make the specter of nuclear terrorism a clear and present danger."
To prevent war, the world community should not agree to "a partial deal" that lifts sanctions that took years to implement in return for cosmetic changes that Iran could reverse in weeks, Netanyahu said.
"Lift the sanctions only when Iran fully dismantles its nuclear weapons program," he said. "The international community has Iran on the ropes. If you want to knock out Iran's nuclear weapons program peacefully, don't let up the pressure."
And if talks fail, Netanyahu left little doubt that Israel will take matters into its own hands.
"Israel will not allow Iran to get nuclear weapons," he said. "If Israel is forced to stand alone, Israel will stand alone."
His speech comes after Iranian President Hasan Rouhani brought a new message of friendliness during a four-day trip to the United Nations in New York last week, a trip that ended with a 15-minute phone call with President Obama. It was the first phone call between two leaders from the U.S. and Iran in three decades.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and other world powers will participate in talks with Iran over curtailing its nuclear program later this month.
Netanyahu attempted to rebut the image of Rouhani as an independent Iranian leader seeking peace and friendship with the West. It's true the new Iranian leader does not sound like his predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Netanyahu said.
"The only difference between them is this: Ahmadinejad was a wolf in wolf's clothing. Rouhani is a wolf in sheeps clothing, a wolf who thinks he can pull the wool over the eyes of the international community."
Rouhani "is a loyal servant of the regime," which approved his candidacy and rejected hundreds of others, Netanyahu said.
Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Iranian television that Netanyahu's warnings that Iran's nuclear ambitions aim at building a bomb for Israel's destruction are lies and show Netanyahu is the "most isolated man in the U.N."
"We have seen nothing from Netanyahu but lies and actions to deceive and scare, and international public opinion will not let these lies go unanswered," Zarif said on Iranian television, according to an AFP report.
Netanyahu said Rouhani's led Iran's Supreme National Security Council from 1989 through 2003, while his country's "henchmen" gunned down opposition leaders in a Berlin restaurant, murdered 85 people at the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, and killed 19 American soldiers by blowing up the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, Netanyahu said. U.S. and Argentinian investigators have attributed those attacks to the Iranian-backed Shiite militia Hezbollah nand to members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps.
Rouhani was also Iran's chief nuclear negotiator from 2003 to 2005, when he "masterminded" a strategy that "enabled Iran to advance its nuclear weapons program behind a smokescreen of diplomatic engagement and very soothing rhetoric," Netanyahu said.
Though Rouhani spoke of the "human tragedy in Syria," Iran is helping Syrian president Bashar Assad murder of tens of thousands of Syrian citizens, Netanyahu said.
Netanyahu also referred to Rouhani's statements that Iran has never chosen deceit and secrecy, but in 2002 Iran was caught secretly building a nuclear facility in Natanz and in 2009 it was caught building a huge nuclear enrichment facility under a mountain near Qoms.
"The facts are that Iran's savage record flatly contradicts Rohani's soothing rhetoric," he said.
Netanyahu, who served as Israel's ambassador to the U.N. from 1984 to 1988, said that oil-rich Iran has no reason to pursue nuclear technology other than to build a bomb, as Rouhani claimed, and he listed reasons to think that it is.
"Underground nuclear facilities, heavy water reactors, advanced centrifuges. ICBMs. It's not that it's hard to find evidence Iran has a nuclear weapons program,' Netanyahu said. "It's hard to find evidence Iran doesn't have a nuclear weapons program."
Netanyahu told Obama during a visit to the White House Monday that despite the change in tone, "Iran is committed to Israel's destruction."
USA Today
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