A US military option with regard to Iran remains on the table should Tehran violate the terms of the framework agreement to curb its nuclear program, which US President Barack Obama hopes to finalize in June.
“Certainly if Iran violates the agreement all options are on the table related to Iran, including military options,” US Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes said on Monday night in an interview that he gave to Israel’s Channel 2 in support of the deal.
“We believe it is best if we do not have to exercise that option, and Iran complies with this type of good comprehensive deal,” he added, as he explained that he believed the agreement would keep Iran from possessing a nuclear weapon. He added, that the sanctions regime could be snapped back into place, should there be any violation of the deal.
Iran has to earn the lifting of the sanctions, said Rhodes. “We are providing sanctions relief using the presidents waiver authority, which he can turn on or turn off,” he said.
Rhodes spoke to Israel’s Channel 2 and 10, just one day after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu advocated against the agreement on three major US networks, CNN, ABC and NBC.
As part of the US media blitz in Israel, US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro spoke to Israel’s Channel 1.
In the sign of a possible thaw in the relationship between Netanyahu and US President Barack Obama, the two US officials, attempted to show that the disagreement between the leaders was about policy.
In what was perceived as a diplomatic snub from the White House, Obama did not meet with Netanyahu when the Israeli prime minister visited Washington in March to speak to a joint session of Congress against the Iran deal. It was the first time that Netanyahu visited Washington without a personal meeting with Obama.
They assured Israelis that Obama would meet with Netanyahu in Washington.
“We have not extended any invitations yet,” Rhodes said, but added that this would likely happen once the new government was formed.
“There will certainly be an occasion for the two of them to meet in Washington going forward,” Rhodes said.
He noted, however, that the two leaders have spoken at length on the telephone and will continue to do so.
"When they pick up the phone they talk to each other, but they have the type of conversations that you would expect of two leaders who have had substantive policy differences, but they had the conversation,” said Rhodes, who underscored that there were many areas of cooperation between the two countries.
Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon told Channel 2 that Israel trusted the US's intentions, it simply didn’t trust the Iranians, who he believed would be able to continue to pursue its nuclear program under the terms of this deal.
Worse, Ya’alon explained, the program will now have international legitimacy.
A policy paper put forth by Israeli officials, including Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steintiz, provided a detailed explanation as to why Israel opposed the deal, which it believes “paves the path” to a nuclear Iran.
“Not a single nuclear facility will be shut down. Iran will be permitted to continue its advanced centrifuge R&D, and its intercontinental ballistic missile program remains unaddressed,” the paper said.
The sanctions relief will give Iran’s economy a boost and provide billions of dollars that Iran can use to support terrorist activity in the region and the world, Israel warned.
It focuses in particular on a list of ten questions which it felt should be answered by the six powers — the US, Russia, China, France, the United Kingdom and Germany — which worked out the framework deal with Iran in Switzerland last week.
1) Why are sanctions that took years to put in place being removed immediately (as the Iranians claim)? This would take away the international community's primary leverage at the outset of the agreement and make Iranian compliance less likely.
2) Given Iran’s track record of concealing illicit nuclear activities, why does the framework not explicitly require Iran to accept inspections of all installations where suspected nuclear weapons development has been conducted? Why can't inspectors conduct inspections anywhere, anytime?
3) Will Iran ever be forced to come clean about its past nuclear weaponization activity?
4) What will be the fate of Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium?
5) Why will Iran be allowed to continue R&D on centrifuges far more advanced than those currently in its possession?
6) Why does the framework not address Iran's intercontinental ballistic missile program, whose sole purpose is to carry nuclear payloads?
7) Following Iranian violations of the framework, how effective will the mechanism to reinstitute sanctions be?
8) What message does the framework send to states in the region and around the world when it gives such far reaching concessions to a regime that for years has defied UNSC resolutions? Why would this not encourage nuclear proliferation?
9) The framework agreement appears to have much in common with the nuclear agreement reached with North Korea. How will this deal differ from the North Korean case?
10) Why is the lifting of restrictions on Iran's nuclear program in about a decade not linked to a change in Iran's behavior? According to the framework, Iran could remain the world's foremost sponsor of terror and still have all the restrictions removed. Instead, the removal of those restrictions should be linked a cessation of Iran's aggression in the Middle East, its terrorism around the world and its threats to annihilate Israel.