Tuesday’s sitdown between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Trump showed they clearly agree on the single-most important issue in the Middle East: Not letting Iran go nuclear.
That’s a big relief. And a refreshing shift from the pro-Iran, anti-Israel days of the Biden team.
Indeed, just before the two men met, Trump signed an executive order reapplying “maximum pressure” on Iran to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons: That includes enforcing sanctions and cutting off Tehran’s oil exports to deprive it of foreign funds.
Hooray!
Yes, Trump vowed to try to “work out a deal with Iran.”
But Iran, he said, “cannot have a nuclear weapon.”
That doesn’t leave a lot of time for diplomacy, since Tehran is most likely just weeks away from getting one — unless somebody stops it, or at least sets it way back.
And Trump is clearly right: Iran is run by a radical, anti-democratic regime that’s out to dominate the entire Middle East.
If it gets its hands on nuclear weapons, the whole world loses — including the Iranian people.
Which is why we expect Trump and Bibi also discussed, behind closed doors, how they’ll ensure that never happens.
The issue’s urgency is one more reason (atop advertising the renewed health of US-Israeli relations) Netanyahu was the first foreign leader to visit the second-term Trump White House.
And likely another reason Trump ended the Biden-era ban on delivering some of the biggest bombs in the US arsenal to the Israelis.
Reports this week suggest that Tehran is seeking added, faster paths to acquiring a full nuke-plus-delivery-system package, even if the first fruits are less sophisticated than what it had earlier sought.
That tells you that Iran knows the clock is ticking, too: Expect it to offer serious diplomacy to win the time to go nuclear before it gets stopped.
If Israel determines Iran is on the brink, it’ll surely look to strike Tehran’s nuclear sites before any bombs can go online.
And Trump will need to back the Jewish state — even, perhaps, with active military support.
Yes, Trump and Bibi also discussed the next phase of the cease-fire/hostage-release deal, and seemed largely in agreement on the need purge Hamas from Gaza. That’s good news, too.
But that deadline is a lot less urgent than Iran’s ticking nuclear clock.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
