excerpts:
Michael Oren: This is not a time when Israel’s
survival is at stake to think how many people love me.
1:36:58 into the video
We have not come back from 2000 years of exile to forge this
state in the most inhospitable area of the world in order to forfeit our right
to defend ourselves.
1:37:26
David Suissa: If you were now President
of the United States and you were in charge of the negotiations what would you
do?
Michael
Oren: I keep
going back to 2009, the year of creation. When I say that the window for diplomacy
will not remain indefinitely open, I got to stick by that. I got to close the
window. He made a statement yesterday. He said he may walk away from this deal,
it’s not a good deal. Did the Iranians believe him? Do they have empirical
basis for believing him because this has been said again and again, and they
always come back. I had to deal with it.
One of the challenges in the book was that I come across rather prescient than clairvoyant. I do not think it is rocket
science. I have been saying for the last couple of months, if not longer, that
the Iranians wouldn’t sign on June 30. Even though I thought the book should come
out now, because who knows, they could. Why? Because they have internalized
that the longer they negotiate the more concessions they get, whereas it should
be just the opposite. The longer they dither the fewer centrifuges they
should get. It is just the opposite.
David Suissa: How do you answer Michael, let’s say you do
walk away now. Can’t they just walk over the finish line and complete the bomb?
Michael
Oren: You have to have a credible military threat.
What is the problem with the credible military threat? The credible military
threat is a paradox. The more credible it is the lesser the chances you’ll have
to use it. The more Iranians believe it. By the way, if you have to use the
earlier you use it – it is less dangerous than later you have to use it. Once
the Iranian program goes underground you got a problem, you have to carpet bomb
all of Iran. Right now they are very exposed in the enrichment part.
But the Iranian leadership, they know they are playing a
very high price for their nuclear program. Tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars. They
believe that at the end of the day they are going to have the thing. They have
not realized, because there is no credible military threat, that at the end of
the day they are NOT going to get the bomb, and that they are paying all this
money for naught. Because if they think they are going to get the bomb, they
are not, they are going to get bombed.
Note: Oren quoted Hillel in Hebrew and only partially. The actual quote is "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? And, if not now, when?"
