Israel’s spy chief reportedly lambasted a pending Iran nuclear deal as “a strategic disaster” and “an agreement based on lies.”
David Barnea, the director of Mossad, made the comments at a recent intelligence briefing with Prime Minister Yair Lapid, as reported by Israeli news outlets Haaretz, Channel 12, and Ynet. According to reports of the meeting, Barnea said he believes the United States and Iran will sign a nuclear deal within the next several weeks. He reportedly stressed that Israel will not be bound by the deal and may act however it sees fit.
“The agreement is the given situation, and one that we have not signed on to. We will do anything we need in order to defend ourselves against any threat, and there will be threats. We are committed to dealing with said threats, even if they are nuclear,” the Mossad chief said, as reported by Haaretz.
IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL ‘CLOSER NOW,’ BUT ‘WE’RE NOT THERE YET,’ WHITE HOUSE SAYS
The Mossad director also dismissed optimistic claims that the deal would decrease Iranian attacks against U.S. and Israeli targets, saying that it would only embolden Iran. It would free up billions of frozen funds for its proxies and allied terrorist groups, such as Hezbollah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad, Ynet reported him as saying.
“Iran is, on one hand, negotiating in regard to the nuclear deal, and on the other hand is waging a terror campaign against the U.S., American targets such as John Bolton and Mike Pompeo and American military bases in Syria,” he said, according to Haaretz. “This will continue to happen in the future, first and foremost against [Israel].”
Barnea said he believes the current deal in the works is even worse than the 2015 deal, as more information about Iran’s military capabilities has surfaced.
“They are signing a similar deal to the one signed in 2015 but the world has changed. The Iranians had developed advanced centrifuges and the threats, and the technologies are different,” he said, according to Ynet.
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U.S. National Security Council strategic communications coordinator John Kirby announced on Wednesday that negotiations for another nuclear deal with Iran had opened back up after Iran softened its position on a few preconditions to reentering negotiations.
Biden administration officials have not publicly said how close they are to securing a deal with Iran, making Barnea’s claims that a deal could be reached within a few weeks to a month a revelation.
