Netanyahu said on Monday Iran had a nuclear weapons program, despite signing the Joint Action Plan (JCPOA) with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, in addition to Germany and the European Union (EU) in 2015.
© AFP 2018 / JAAFAR ASHTIYEH
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Netanyahu said during his speech on Monday that Israeli intelligence has 100,000 files proving that Iran has continued to maintain a secret nuclear program.
Trump has repeatedly described JCPOA as the worst deal in US history and now faces the deadline of May 12 to decide whether or not the United States will continue to be part of the nuclear deal.
Some expect Trump to get out of the deal. However, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo admitted during his confirmation hearing that Iran was fulfilling its commitments under the agreement.
Israel appears to seek clashes with Tehran
Political commentator Dan Lazare has warned that Netanyahu could press for a conflict with Iran, even if Trump decides to stay in the 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran.
"Even if the agreement remains in place, Netanyahu can still press for a showdown with Iran, leaving Trump with little choice but to go forward," Lazare said.
Netanyahu has been using all the political support that Israel enjoys among Republican and Democratic lawmakers and both chambers of the US Congress to increase pressure on Trump to get out of the nuclear deal, Lazare said.
© Sputnik / Vladimir Astapkovich
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"Netanyahu has immense power in Washington, more so than Trump, so his performance of showing and telling has undoubtedly a huge effect," he said.
The Israeli prime minister is deliberately escalating the dangers of the conflict in Syria to try to force the US government into a situation in which it had no choice but to support Israel in a confrontation with Iran, Lazare warned.
"The issue of war is not entirely in the hands of Washington. Whatever the impact of Netanyahu's speech, his repeated bomb incursions, assuming they continue, will speak much louder than words," he said.
US decision-making capacity
On the other hand, the US government is not a passive player that Netanyahu could manipulate at will, Lazare said.
"Washington is not totally mass in the hands of the Israelis, on the contrary, Americans are great and are perfectly capable of finding out where their imperial interests are on their own, and that is definitely not to provoke another East Blast," he said.
Most members of Congress seemed to favor a stay in the nuclear deal with Iran, Lazare said.
Moreover, "when the moment of truth arrives, Trump will also surrender to reason ... But that does not mean that an explosion will not occur," he said.
Trump can still be pulled into a war with Iran by Israel, just as his predecessor, President Barack Obama, was forced to support the current Saudi Arabian air war in Yemen, Lazare noted.
"Obama thought he had no choice but to provide support, which is why, three years later, the United States finds itself in yet another quagmire," he continued.
Trump, like Netanyahu, made the world more dangerous
Professor of Anthropology at the University of Minnesota and Middle East historian William Beeman, author of The Great Satan versus the Mad Mules, said he believed that Trump had already decided to abandon the 2015 nuclear deal and that Netanyahu's comments had been planned for help you do this.
"The Netanyahu coup was planned to cover the cover of Trump, who seems to have already decided to disqualify JCPOA on May 12 ... Netanyahu gave him something to point and move on with this destructive action," he said.
However, Beeman pointed out that Netanyahu did not reveal any new information about the Iranian nuclear program in his presentation on Monday.
© AP Photo / Hani Mohammed
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"Netanyahu's lecture can be described as a 'cheap dog and pony show.' He did not reveal anything new. All the 'documents' were over 15 years old and without the ability to inspect them, there is no way to assess their relevance to the current situation in Iran, "he said.
The diagrams that Netanyahu showed in his presentation are available on Wikipedia or in any elementary nuclear engineering text, Beeman noted.
"What is a difficult fact is that Iran has scrupulously adhered to the provisions of the JCPOA." Netanyahu grimly suggested that the Iranians might be cheating, but he provides no evidence for that.It's all insinuating [...] Stupid beyond belief, he said.
European nations could still bail out JCPOA, but they would have to do so without the United States, Beeman advised.
"The truth is that Trump is about to make the world a much more dangerous place," he said. The White House said in a statement on Monday that the United States supported Israel's efforts and praised data collected by Israeli intelligence, which seemed to lend credibility to Netanyahu's allegations.
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