Delayed from Thursday because of the bombing at Kabul airport, the meeting of United States President Joe Biden and Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett − the first of the two men in office − appeared a muted affair with neither willing to acknowledge differences over Iran.
While Bennett sought to move on from the assertive public style of predecessor Benjamin Netanyahu, he maintained an insistence on the threat from Tehran. “Iran is the world’s number one exporter of terror, instability and human rights violations, and as we sit here right now, the Iranians are spinning their centrifuges [enriching uranium] in the [atomic] plants in Fordow and we’ve got to stop them and we both agree,” Bennett said.
Bennett shares Netanyahu’s antipathy to Iran’s 2105 nuclear agreement with world powers, which the Biden wants to revive while continuing ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions introduced by President Donald Trump as he withdrew 2018 from the agreement, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action).
But difficulties in Vienna talks between Iran and world powers designed to revive the JCPOA have given Israel’s leadership the chance to seek common ground with the US.
Bennet claimed that he and Biden were developing a strategy based on two goals. “The first goal is to stop Iran on its regional aggression and start rolling them back into the box,” he said. “And the second is to permanently keep Iran away from ever being able to breakout a nuclear weapon.”
Biden spoke less in public about Iran than about Afghanistan, extending sympathy to the families of the 31 US servicepeople killed in Kabul. Chaotic scenes from the airport followed by Thursday’s carnage have dented Biden’s approval ratings.
Biden said he and Bennett were discussing “the threat from Iran and our commitment to ensure Iran never develops a nuclear weapon… We’re putting diplomacy first and we’ll see where that takes us. But if diplomacy fails, we’re ready to turn to other options.”
Source: Iran International