I think this [Reporter Goldberg's example of a deal that keeps Iran perpetually a year or more from reaching the possibility of nuclear breakout] is a setup for the same mistake that was done with North Korea. You leave Iran with a breakout capability -- let’s say a year. During that year, you have two problems. Will you muster the political will and capability to deal with this in a year? What if there is another unfolding crisis somewhere? Second, on the matter of inspections that are promised -- they built their underground bunkers when they were under inspection! Intelligence isn’t perfect -- far from it. Intelligence did not prevent enrichment sites from being built without anyone knowing for years. 

Everybody in the region -- everybody -- shares my assessment that what you have to do is dismantle Iran’s enrichment capability. If you leave them with enrichment capability, then everybody will scramble to get their own capability. They might do two things simultaneously: They might actually kowtow to Iran and begin relations with Iran, and at the same time scramble for their [own] nuclear weapons. So this agreement that is meant to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons will be instead a tremendous force for proliferation. 

If Iran is allowed to maintain what is called a threshold capability, then in all likelihood, they will break out. We think they should be pushed back so that they don’t have that capability to produce nuclear weapons. We need to dismantle their capability, to take away their enriched uranium and, of course, to address the other components of their system. What is the justification for giving it [enrichment] to them? They are a systematic violator of every UN resolution, including a UN report that shows they’re still violating even today.

Look at what Iran does without nuclear weapons. They’re in Syria; they’re in Gaza, sending ships with weapons. They’re in Yemen, in Bahrain, Iraq, everywhere. So if [Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei’s Iran becomes a threshold nuclear power, what do you think will happen? Is this going to move Iran into greater moderation, when he has greater force, or is he going to be even less moderate?

Syria:

Goldberg: There’s been a lot of criticism of President Obama on Syria, the "red line" controversy, and the deal he engineered with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin to bring about the removal of Assad’s chemical weapons. It’s now nine months or so after that particular crisis. What’s your assessment of the chemical weapons deal today?

Netanyahu: I think this is the one ray of light in a very dark region. It’s not complete yet. We are concerned that they may not have declared all of their capacity. But what has been removed has been removed. We’re talking about 90 percent. We appreciate the effort that has been made and the results that have been achieved.

 Read more: http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-05-22/netanyahu-says-obama-got-syria-right

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