Lapid: 'This [Iran] Deal Is Not a Good Deal'; More Dangerous Than 2015 Agreement

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

62% : It is closer to its sunset date and Iran is more advanced technologically."
59% : Then Biden came in, seeking to return both the U.S. and Iran to compliance.
52% :The declaration signed during Biden's visit last month states in part:"The United States stresses that integral to this pledge is the commitment never to allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon, and that it is prepared to use all elements of its national power to ensure that outcome.
49% : During the earlier stages of the diplomacy, administration officials referred frequently to the goal of a "longer and stronger" agreement, dealing with malign behavior beyond the nuclear issueFive months before the 2020 election, Blinken - then a foreign policy adviser to the Biden campaign, now secretary of state - told an American Jewish Committee event that if a Biden administration succeeds in getting Iran and the U.S. to return to compliance with the JCPOA, "we would use that as a platform with our partners and allies, who would be on the same side with us again, to negotiate a longer and stronger deal."
48% : The following month, Blinken told CNN's Fareed Zakaria that if the U.S. and Iran agree to return to compliance with the JCPOA, the U.S. could use the return to the original deal as a foundation to see if it could be made "potentially longer and stronger."
46% : Lapid said Israel was not opposed to an Iran agreement per se."It is both possible and necessary to make Iran sign a much better agreement, one that the Americans themselves dubbed 'longer and stronger,'" he said.
46% : Lapid said such an agreement was possible, "if a credible military threat is put on the table - if the Iranians realize that their defiance and deceit will exact a heavy price."He claimed that the U.S. threat of bombs capable of penetrating bunkers had succeeded in Iran getting the message and signing the original deal in 2015.
42% : In a further challenge to the Biden administration, Lapid said the pending agreement - a draft drawn up by the European Union, with Washington and Tehran in the process of exchanging responses - did not meet President Biden's own stated goals.
40% :On Sunday, the former commander of U.S. Central Command, retired Marine Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, said that if a nuclear deal with Iran is concluded and sanctions are lifted, that will give the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps "added funding to further - to further support their destabilizing and malign activities across the region."
36% :Just weeks into the new administration, then-White House press secretary Jen Psaki said that Biden has pledged to return to the deal, once Iran returns to its commitments, and will "then use that as a platform to build a longer and stronger agreement that also addresses other areas of concern."
35% : The public statement of opposition marks a shift for Lapid, who along with his immediate predecessor Naftali Bennett has up until now sought to manage differences with Washington over Iran in a less heated fashion than characterized the relationship between the Binyamin Netanyahu and Obama-Biden administrations.
32% : "After the latest proposal that the European Union put on the table, we told the Americans, 'This is not what President Biden wanted.'
24% : Trump's withdrawal from the JCPOA in 2018 prompted Iran to begin violating its uranium-enrichment and related commitments, a process that accelerated after the 2020 presidential election, according to a Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) analysis.

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