Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on CNN's "New Day" Tuesday that arguments in defense of the Iran nuclear deal are flawed and those who want peace should oppose the deal.
CNN's Chris Cuomo told Netanyahu that U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis said the Iran deal was made with the understanding Iran would try to cheat.
"So it wasn't done assuming that they would change as a state actor," Cuomo said. "Nobody went into it with their eyes closed to that reality. But it's better than nothing, right? If there were no deal in place right now, you would have no idea what's going on."
Netanyahu said he disagreed with that assessment, but Cuomo continued to push back, saying "If by all accounts Iran has slowed or stopped what it was doing prior to the deal, how would you be safer without a deal?"
"There are many premises that are incorrect in your statement," Netanyahu said.
The Israeli prime minister argued that if you have a "dangerous deal," it is dangerous whether or not Iran is violating it or not.
"It's completely flawed. It's based on lies," he said.
Netanyahu said the Iran deal is based on the notion Iran will somehow become a "docile neighbor."
"That's not what's happening. The opposite has happened," Netanyahu said.
"It's taken in the money–the billions–and it's using it to conquer Yemen, to fire rockets on Saudi Arabia, to colonize Syria militarily, to arm Hezbollah with the most dangerous missiles on Earth, to call for Israel's annihilation, to spread its totalitarian wings throughout the Middle East, and to suppress its people inside Iran to boot, " he said.
The Israeli prime minister argued the deal's economic benefits support Iran in producing nuclear weapons.
"This deal paves Iran's path to a nuclear arsenal. If you got rid of it, the first thing that would happen is you would crash Iran's money machine in which it's pursuing its dreams of conquest and empire," he said.
Without action, Netanyahu argued, you "head right into a wall" and a terrible conflict, perhaps even a war with a nuclear Iran.
"If you want peace, oppose this deal," he said.
Natanyahu's remarks follow a Monday press conference during which he revealed secret evidence of Iran's top secret nuclear workings. U.S. officials confirmed Israel had shared the evidence with the United States and validated the documents as authentic, the Washington Free Beacon reported:
Senior Trump administration officials confirmed the findings as authentic and praised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's for disclosing thousands of secret documents proving Iran lied about its past work on a nuclear warhead, telling the Free Beacon the revelation was a "powerful presentation" by Israel outlining why the Iran deal must be fixed or killed.
U.S. officials who reviewed the secret documents confirmed their authenticity and said that Israel has shared the information fully with the United States, most likely to help build the case for Trump to abandon the nuclear deal, rather than try to fix what the White House views as a series of insurmountable flaws.