Netanyahu: Iran With Centrifuges Worse Than ISIS

Uses Jerusalem Road Dedication to Rail Against Nuclear Talks

Speaking today at the dedication of Jerusalem’s Road Number 9, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took the opportunity, as he so often does in public appearances that have nothing to do with Iran, to talk about Iran.

In the comments, Netanyahu railed against the ongoing nuclear negotiations, saying any deal that ended with Iran being allowed to keep its uranium centrifuges would leave it “much worse than the threat of Islamic State.”

Iran has had the centrifuges for years, and has been using them for their civilian nuclear program, enriching uranium to the low levels needed for power generation, they’ve never even attempted to enrich anywhere near the levels required for nuclear weapons.

But this is Israel we’re talking about, and the nation has made a political industry out of overplaying the Iranian “threat,” and has also been keen to downplay the ISIS takeover of northern Syria, with officials repeatedly insisting that ISIS is preferable to the Assad government, because the later is an ally of Iran.

Though one might figure Israel to be rethinking this with al-Qaeda fighters now on their Syrian frontier, it seems that the preference is still toward hyping the Iranian “nuclear threshold,” and alarming claims that Iran is within however many months of building a nuclear bomb, claims that have been ongoing for decades at this point without ever coming to pass.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.