madaresharghi [1]
Former US secretary of state John Kerry said both Israel and Egypt pushed the United States to “bomb Iran” before the 2015 nuclear deal was struck.
During his position as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 2009 to early 2013, Kerry said he met with Saudi King Abdullah, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who all pushed for military action in Iran. It was not entirely clear when the exchanges occurred, AP wrote.
“Each of them said to me, you have to bomb Iran, it’s the only thing they are going to understand,” he said.
But Kerry said that was “a trap” in many ways because the same countries would have publicly criticized the US if it bombed.
Kerry added that Netanyahu was “genuinely agitating toward action.”
Kerry said the deal was the best, and most transparent agreement that could have been achieved.
“Without exaggeration, the likelihood is very high that we would have been in conflict [without a deal]”, he stated.
Kerry played a key role in securing the deal Iran and six world powers: the US, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany. He has criticized US President Donald Trump for attempting to ‘fix’ the agreement that Kerry said “is doing precisely what it was set up to do.”
Earlier this month, Kerry warned the US Congress that it would be “extraordinarily dangerous” for it to reject the 2015 Iran nuclear deal after Trump’s decision to decertify Iran’s compliance with it.
Despite reports by the International Atomic Energy Agency that Iran is honoring its obligations to the nuclear deal, amid accusations by Trump that it isn’t, the US continued to pass a number of pieces of legislation targeting the country.