Why Iran Deal Is Good for Israel

Daniel Kurtzer – CNN

I take Israeli security concerns extremely seriously….

Israel should have been the first to welcome this agreement, working with the P5+1 on mechanisms and assurances to ensure the effectiveness of inspections and verification systems. Instead, Israel has launched an all-out assault on the agreement, gambling with its status as a bipartisan consensus issue within our politics and creating rifts among its supporters, especially in the American Jewish community….

In November 2013, when Iran and the P5+1 negotiators reached their interim agreement in Geneva, Israel was the first out of the blocks to condemn that agreement and to warn that it would fail. And yet that interim agreement worked well.

It is not too late for cooler heads in Israel and in Congress to prevail, cooler heads that would seek to engage intensely with the administration to enhance intelligence and other capabilities designed to safeguard Israel’s security during the implementation period.

Obama touts Iran nuclear deal during speech at American University:

Debating the Dubious Iran Deal

John R. Bolton – The Washington Times

With so many flaws, the Vienna agreement on Iran’s nuclear-weapons program is generating considerable debate…. Consider just a few of the Vienna deal’s long-term effects….

First, the negotiations themselves, clearly long headed in the wrong direction, have fueled an already-nascent nuclear-arms race in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia already had contingency plans to buy nuclear weapons directly from Pakistan, or perhaps even for constructive possession. Now, Riyadh has launched its own domestic nuclear programs, for “peaceful purposes,” of course. Egypt, Turkey and Jordan have announced similar plans for indigenous nuclear programs and other regional states could follow….

Second, the Iran deal proves yet again that Mr. Obama gives little or no credence to Israel’s security concerns, much like the administration’s repeatedly failed efforts to force a settlement between Israel and the Palestinians that would endanger Israel’s self-defense capabilities….

Ironically, America’s Arab friends now see us as increasingly unreliable, cutting and running from a complicated, dangerous region, and leaving them adrift.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a cabinet meeting in Jerusalem on Aug. 5, 2015. (AP)