A focus of security enhancement once the Iran nuclear deal goes through will be neutralizing Hezbollah’s threat to Israel, US President Barack Obama says in a landmark interview with the Jewish Daily Forward.
“As soon as this debate is over, we will, I think, be able to invigorate what has been an ongoing conversation with the Israelis about how we can do even more to enhance the unprecedented military and intelligence cooperation that we have with them, and to see, are there additional capabilities that Israel may be able to use to prevent Hezbollah, for example, from getting missiles,” Obama says in the interview — the first with the Jewish media since he became president.
“Where Iran has been effective in its destabilizing activities, it’s not because it’s had a lot of money,” Obama continues, countering criticism that the sanctions relief for the nuclear restrictions deal that will unfreeze $50 billion in funds will increase Iran’s capacity for disruption.
“It’s because they’ve effectively used proxies; it’s because they’ve invested in places like Lebanon for decades and become entrenched,” the president states. “And the reason we haven’t done a better job of stopping that is not because they’re outspending us. The reason is… is because we haven’t been as coordinated, had as good intelligence and been as systematic in pushing back as we need to be.”
— JTA
US President Barack Obama participates in a round-table discussion on Hurricane Katrina at the Andrew P. Sanchez Community Center in New Orleans, Louisiana, August 27, 2015. (AP/Andrew Harnik)
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