Special to WorldTribune.com

In dueling warnings about the Iran deal, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the agreement will only “pave Iran’s path to the bomb” while U.S. President Barack Obama warned a group of U.S. Jewish leaders that Israel would likely face a barrage of rocket attacks if the deal was blocked by Congress,

Netanyahu, in a webcast organized by Jewish groups in North America on Aug. 4, predicted the deal would further destabilize the region, resulting in an arms race.

“The deal that was supposed to end nuclear proliferation, will actually trigger nuclear proliferation. It will trigger a nuclear arms race in the Middle East,” Netanyahu said.

Netanyahu has been a fierce critic of the deal since day one and angered the Obama White House earlier this year when he slammed the deal in a speech before a joint session of Congress.

“The nuclear deal with Iran doesn’t block Iran’s path to the bomb,” Netanyahu said on Aug. 4. “It actually paves Iran’s path to the bomb.”

Greg Rosenbaum, one of 20 Jewish leaders who met with Obama at the White House on Aug. 4, said on Israel Radio that the president detailed what a U.S. military option to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities would mean if the deal between world powers and Teheran was voted down.

“He said military action by the United States against Iran’s nuclear facilities is not going to result in Iran deciding to have a full-fledged war with the United States,” Rosenbaum, of the National Jewish Democratic Council, quoted Obama as saying.

” ‘You’ll see more support for terrorism. You’ll see Hizbullah rockets falling on Tel Aviv.’ This is what he said would happen if the U.S. had a military strike on Iran,” Rosenbaum said.

Netanyahu believes that, if the agreement is upheld, Iran could obtain a nuclear weapon within 15 years. He also said Teheran was likely to circumvent the deal since it allows as many as 24 days to pass for inspectors to evaluate suspicious sites and any secret activities would go undetected by world powers.

“Twenty-four days is more than enough time to clean up a site of all traces of illicit activity,” Netanyahu said. “It’s like police giving a drug dealer three-and-a-half weeks notice before raiding his lab. You can flush a lot of nuclear meth down the toilet in 24 days.”

“I don’t oppose this deal because I want war, I oppose this deal because I want to prevent war, and this deal will bring war,” said Netanyahu. “The days when the Jewish people could not or would not speak up for themselves, those days are over.”

House Republican leaders announced on Aug. 4 that Congress would vote on a resolution to approve or disapprove of the nuclear deal when lawmakers return from recess in September.

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