Netanyahu At Odds With Military in Pushing Trump on Iran Deal

Netanyahu Wants to Present Trump With Plan to Scrap Nuclear Deal

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long been very vocal about how opposed to the idea of the P5+1 nuclear deal with Iran he is. But while this is seen as Israel’s position, Netanyahu appears to be bumping up against military and intelligence leadership on the matter.

Netanyahu and Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman are both eager to press President Trump on withdrawing from the nuclear deal during the UN General Assembly visit. All intelligence agencies in Israel agree Iran is complying with the deal, however.

More than just not having a good pretext to withdraw, the Israeli military and intelligence officials say they believe a US withdrawal would make the deal much worse, as the rest of the P5+1 almost certainly won’t go along with the US, leaving everyone divided on the issue.

Netanyahu is said to have a full plan he intends to present to Trump on how to declare Iran to be in violation of the deal and withdraw from it. Though details are scant on what this means, it seems mostly to involve imposing a bunch of new sanctions on the Iranians.

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.