Iran dealKerry tells Israelis: U.S. “guarantees” it can prevent Iran from getting the bomb

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry tried to assuage concerns in Israel over the nuclear deal with Iran, saying in a Sunday interview on Israel’s Channel 10 TV that “There is a lot of hysteria about this deal.”

Israel regards a nuclear-armed Iran to be an existential threat to Israel, and Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been a leading critic of the emerging deal negotiation between the P5+1 group and Iran.

Kerry said the deal would not affect American options to counter any possible effort by Iran to build atomic weapons.

“I say to every Israeli that today we have the ability to stop them if they decided to move quickly to a bomb, and I absolutely guarantee that in the future we will have the ability to know what they are doing so that we can still stop them if they decided to move to a bomb,” Kerry said.

The Guardian notes that Netanyahu contents that the potential deal leaves intact too much of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, including research facilities, weapons testing sites, and advanced centrifuges capable of enriching uranium to weapon grade.

“We will have inspectors in there every single day. That is not a 10-year deal; that is forever,” Kerry said. “There is a lot of hysteria about this deal.”

Netanyahu’s criticism has contributed to rising tensions between him and President Barack Obama.

“We think there needs to be a different deal, a better deal, and there are those that tell us this won’t endanger Israel,” Netanyahu said Sunday during a visit by U.S. Senator Rob Portman (R-Ohio). “I must say, as prime minister of Israel, who is responsible for Israel’s security — this does endanger Israel.”

The Washington Post reported yesterday (Sunday) about the growing role of Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz, an MIT nuclear physicist, in the nuclear negotiations with Iran. Moniz’s expertise, and the expertise of his assistants, have added scientific legitimacy to the arguments Kerry and President Obama make in support of the emerging agreement.

“Now, if we are able to obtain a final deal that comports with the political agreement — and I say ‘if’ because that’s not yet final — then I’m absolutely positive that that is the best way to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon,” Obama said in a recent briefing. “And that’s not my opinion, that’s the opinion of people like Ernie Moniz, my secretary of energy, who is a physicist from MIT and actually knows something about this stuff. That’s the opinion of a whole bunch of nuclear experts who examined the deal.”