Netanyahu on Iran Nukes: 'This Is a Very Bad Deal'

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu spoke on Capitol Hill today on why he would reject a deal with Iran that he contends would only serve to postpone Tehran's nuclear proliferation, not deny it. Highlights:

• Netanyahu praised President Obama. "In each of those [critical] moments, I called the president, and he was there," Netanyhu said. "And some of what the president has done for Israel may never be known. ... But I know it, and I will always be grateful to President Obama for that support."
• Netanyahu compared the current situation between Israel and Iran to the story of Queen Esther, who fought the Persian king Haman: "Today the Jewish people face another attempt by another Persian potentate to destroy us. Iran's Supreme Leader ... spews the oldest hatred of anti-Semitism with the newest technology. He tweets that Israel must be annihilated."

• Comparing the American Constitution to Iranian mandates: "America's founding document promises life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; Iran's founding document pledges death, tyranny, and the pursuit of jihad. Iran's goons in Gaza, its lackeys in Lebanon, its revolutionary guards on the Golan Heights, are clutching Israel with three tentacles of terror."
• "The battle between Iran and ISIS doesn't turn Iran into a friend of America," he says. "In this deadly game of thrones, there's no place for America or Israel, no peace for Christians, Jews, or Muslims who don't share the Islamist medieval creed. No rights for women, no freedom for anyone. So when it comes to Iran and ISIS, the enemy of your enemy is your enemy."
• His main concerns with the Iran deal (which he said anyone could Google) are what he calls two major concessions: First, that Iran would have a vast nuclear infrastructure, and second, that the limited restrictions on Iran could be lifted in a decade: "A decade may seem like a long time in political life, but it's the blink of an eye in the life of a nation. We all have a responsibility to think about what will happen when Iran's nuclear capabilities are virtually unrestricted and all the sanctions will have been lifted."
• Bibi has three conditions Iran should have to meet to have restrictions lifted: "First, stop its aggression against its neighbors in the Middle East. Second, stop supporting terrorism around the world. And third, stop threatening to annihilate my country, Israel, the one and only Jewish state."

(More Benjamin Netanyahu stories.)