Israel’s national security adviser, Tzachi Hanegbi, told Israeli television on Friday that only U.S. President Donald Trump can end Iran’s nuclear program — even as Israel’s military was busy attacking it.
Israel launched massive airstrikes early Friday morning against Iran’s senior military leaders, its air defenses, and its nuclear sites, damaging the facilities at Natanz and Isfahan in particular, both key enrichment sites.
Hanegbi said that while Israel had damaged the program, the only way to stop it was through a deal in which the Iranian regime actually agreed to end its pursuit of nuclear weapons. Only Trump, he said, could bring it about.
The reason for the attacks, he stressed, was that Iran had been on the edge of obtaining nuclear weapons — and that it was necessary to force Iran to negotiate seriously with Trump, rather than just playing for time.
In particular, he said that Iran needed to agree voluntarily to dismantle its nuclear enrichment facilities, not just stop them — something that Trump had demanded, but that the Iranian regime, thus far, had rejected.
The Times of Israel reported:
Hanegbi specifies that the goals of the ongoing operation, as approved by the cabinet, against Iran are four-fold: striking Iran’s nuclear program, striking its ballistic missile capabilities; attacking its capacity to destroy Israel via a ground attack; and creating the conditions for the long-term thwarting of Iran’s nuclear program via diplomatic means.
Asked if this means that Israel does not have the goal of “the IDF destroying Iran’s nuclear program,” Hanegbi replies: “That’s not possible. It cannot be done via kinetic means.”
What is possible, he says, is a solution such as played out in Libya, South Africa and elsewhere, where “the balance of pros and cons” leads the leadership of a state to abandon its nuclear weapons efforts.
Earlier Friday, Trump said Iran had ignored his warnings, but now had a “second chance” to make a deal.
Elements of a “good” deal from an American perspective would include a commitment by Iran to dismantle its entire nuclear enrichment program; to end its ballistic missile program; to stop supporting terror; and, as this author has suggested, to agree to improve human rights in Iran, subject to regular monitoring.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of Trump 2.0: The Most Dramatic ‘First 100 Days’ in Presidential History, available for Amazon Kindle. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
Read the full article here