US Secretary of State John Kerry insisted over the weekend that Israel “will be safer” under the terms of the nuclear deal brokered by world powers and Iran earlier this month. He also asserted that talk of a better deal having been possible was “fantasy.”
“I talked to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday,” Kerry told PBS’s Judy Woodruff in an interview Friday. “I’ve talked to him regularly throughout this process, and we are absolutely by far more linked day-to-day in the security relationship with Israel than at any time in history,” Kerry said.
That American security cooperation and help will only increase, he promised. “President [Barack] Obama is prepared to upgrade that.” And, he added, Obama is willing “to work to do more to be able to address specific concerns” Israel has over the details of the agreement, intended to curb Iran’s nuclear drive in exchange for sanctions relief.
“But we still believe that Israel will be safer with a one-year breakout [to a nuclear weapon] for the ten years [of heightened restrictions stipulated by the deal], than two months,” the time it would take Iran to “break out” to a weapon now, according to many Western intelligence estimates. (READ MORE)
