White House: Iran would never agree to give up nuclear program

The White House said Sunday that no deal could be reached that would see Iran dismantling its nuclear program, pushing back against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s public criticism of the framework agreement, in which he called for an arrangement that would sharply curtail Tehran’s nuclear activities.

“Obviously that’s the preferable solution,” Ben Rhodes, the US deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, told CNN. “But the fact is Iran was never going to agree to a deal in which they got rid of their entire nuclear infrastructure.”

Netanyahu warned the same day that the political framework for the nuclear deal reached Thursday in Switzerland would keep Tehran’s vast nuclear program in place, and that its inter-continental ballistic missile system (ICBM) — an issue not addressed in the deal — was more of a threat to the US than to Israel.

Speaking to CNN as part of a US media blitz, the Israeli prime minister said the deal will not roll back Iran’s nuclear program. The deal “keeps Iran’s vast nuclear infrastructure in place, not a single centrifuge destroyed, not a single nuclear facility shut down, including the underground facilities that they built illicitly. Thousands of centrifuges will keep spinning, enriching uranium, that’s a very bad deal.”

“They’re getting a free path to the bomb,” he said.

Netanyahu also warned that Iran’s ICBM program, an issue that was not negotiated on as part of nuclear talks, was a real threat to the US.

“The ending of their ICBMs, that’s not in the deal, and those missiles are only used for you, they’re not used for us. They have missiles that can reach us and they’re geared for nuclear weapons,” he said.

The PM said he was in favor of a diplomatic solution to the Iran crisis because “for any military option, the country that will pay the biggest price is always Israel, so we want a diplomatic solution but a good one, one that rolls back Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and one that ties the final lifting of restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program with a change of Iran’s behavior.”

“I’m not trying to kill any deal. I’m trying to kill a bad deal,” he told NBC. Countering the assertion by President Barack Obama that the deal was potentially historic in a positive sense, he added, “It could be a historically bad deal.”

“The alternatives are not either this bad deal or [going to] war,” Netanyahu told CNN, challenging Obama’s assertion Thursday that Netanyahu does not want a “peaceful” resolution to the Iran stand-off . “I think there’s a third alternative and that is standing firm, ratcheting up the pressure until we get a better deal. And a better deal would roll back Iran’s vast nuclear infrastructure and require Iran to stop its aggression in the region, its terrorism worldwide and its calls and actions to annihilate the state of Israel. That’s better deal, it’s achievable.”

“Iran’s nuclear program is being legitimized and they are given the ability not only to maintain their infrastructure but also within a few years, to increase it,” he said. “They can just walk into many bombs.”

In a phone call with Netanyahu after the deal was reached Thursday, Obama said the accord “in no way diminishes our concerns with respect to Iran’s sponsorship of terrorism and threats towards Israel and emphasized that the United States remains steadfast in our commitment to the security of Israel.” The White House and State Department made similar statements.

Iran and six world powers announced a series of understandings Thursday, with a final agreement to be reached by June 30. A final deal is meant to cut significantly into Iran’s bomb-capable technology while giving Tehran quick access to assets and markets blocked by international sanctions.

The commitments announced Thursday, if implemented, would substantially pare back some Iranian nuclear assets for a decade and restrict others for an additional five years. According to a US document listing those commitments, Tehran is ready to reduce its number of centrifuges, the machines that can spin uranium gas to levels used in nuclear warheads.

Of the nearly 20,000 centrifuges Iran now has installed or running at its main enrichment site, the country would be allowed to operate just over 5,000. Much of its enriched stockpiles would be neutralized. A planned reactor would be reconstructed so it can’t produce weapons-grade plutonium. Monitoring and inspections by the UN nuclear agency would be enhanced.