La Salle Professor: Netanyahu's Speech Involved 'Threat Inflation,' Failed To Mention That Israel Has Nuclear Weapons That Could 'Utterly Destroy' Iran
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Rich Zeoli talked to Associate Professor of Political Science at La Salle University, Dr. Michael Boyle, about the White House's nuclear negotiations with Iran and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech before Congress opposing the deal they are close to agreeing upon.
Boyle explained why the Obama Administration is negotiating with Iran to sign on to the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty and open themselves up to inspections from the International Atomic Energy Agency.
"Their job, as part of the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty that was signed in 1968, is to regulate all nuclear facilities that any signatory to the NPT has. The United States, Russia, Britain, and France, for example, open their nuclear facilities to the IAEA and allow inspections. That's exactly the same agency that did inspections in Iraq prior to the war in 2003. So that's really why the US is pushing for IAEA inspections is that they're an impartial body, they're used to inspecting nuclear facilities, they're used to distinguishing what's used for weapons and what's used for energy, and this would then allow the US to have the UN effectively police the Iranian nuclear facilities."
He said the White House believes that pushing for access and transparency into Iran's nuclear operations is a safer strategic policy than alienating the regime.
"The Administration has made a calculation that Iran having a nuclear capability -- and they may mean nuclear power plants for perfectly peaceful civilian reasons -- having an Iranian nuclear capability is something the Iranians have said, 'We will not give up on. We have a right to have a nuclear capability and have power plants.' The US has, more or less, accepted, at least the Obama Administration has, more or less, accepted that we are better off, if that's true, making sure [that] one, they're inspected, and two, that what they have is at least a year from being weapon-ized."
Boyle also commented the Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is overstating the risk to Israel in allowing a nuclear deal with the Iranians to be negotiated.
"Netanyahu's speech involved a degree of threat inflation, and it also overlooked one important fact that he doesn't admit when he gives these speeches, which is that Israel has 200 nuclear weapons. So when he talks about Israel being threatened by Iranian nuclear annihilation, he's overlooking the fact that the Israelis have a nuclear deterrent. They have 200 weapons that are not declared [as] part of the IAEA inspections. If the Iranians were to move on the Israelis, the Israelis could overwhelm them and utterly destroy Iran."