BREAKING: Israeli Ministry of Defense slams Obama in a formal statement: “The Iran deal is harmful like the Munich agreement with Hitler”

— Barak Ravid (@BarakRavid) August 5, 2016

Gotta disagree with Israel on this, mostly because everyone was saying that Iran was just 6 months from being nuclear weapons capable before the deal was in place. Now, it pushes it out to 10 years plus 6 months. How exactly is that a bad thing?

I’m still waiting for the math to come in on this. And we all have a better idea of what Iran is doing since there’s more transparency than before the deal was in place (which is to say none).

I get that Israel doesn’t trust Iran, but Israel isn’t even Iran’s chief threat here. It’s the Saudis and the Gulf States, who back other Sunni countries and their conflict is a much older and much more sectarian based conflict, Iran’s support for Hizbullah notwithstanding. That terror group is still trying to keep Assad propped up in Syria.

At the same time, Israel’s trying to work out a new 10-year memo of understanding on military purchases with the US, and the US is likely to give Israel a significant bump in funding over the previous deal (in the range of $3.5-3.7 billion per year, versus $3 billion under prior deal, but less than the $4 billion Israel was seeking).