BICOM

US President Barack Obama has said that he understands Israeli reservations over the nascent nuclear deal with Iran, but that Washington will ensure that Israel is not threatened.

In an interview with Thomas Friedman in the New York Times, Obama maintained that “There is no formula … to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon that will be more effective” than the diplomatic initiative currently underway. However, he also said “I respect” the security argument made by Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, adding that Israelis “have every right to be concerned about Iran” given that the Tehran regime is one which has threatened “to destroy Israel, that has denied the Holocaust, that has expressed venomous anti-Semitic ideas.”

Obama pledged his commitment to Israeli security, saying, “I would consider it a failure on my part, a fundamental failure of my presidency, if on my watch, or as a consequence of work that I had done, Israel was rendered more vulnerable.” He added, “Not only am I absolutely committed to making sure that they [Israel] maintain their qualitative military edge,” but that he would “make the kinds of commitments that would give everybody in the neighbourhood, including Iran, a clarity that if Israel were to be attacked by any state, that we would stand by them.”

President Obama’s words were echoed by US Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Communications, Ben Rhodes, who told two of Israel’s major television networks yesterday that, “If Iran violates all options are on the table … The president, this president or the next president, will have all options on the table including military one.”

Meanwhile, White House spokesman Josh Earnest clarified yesterday that the United States will not “simply take away sanctions on day one” of a potential agreement with Iran, after Tehran claimed such a scenario had been agreed.

It is also reported this morning by Maariv that Netanyahu will be invited to Washington by Obama once a new Israeli government has been formed.