By Aresu Eqbali, Rory Jones and Joel Greenberg
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Thursday urged
his country's parliament to vote on whether to implement a proposed
nuclear deal with the U.S. and five other world powers, even as
Israel's prime minister vowed to continue lobbying against the
pact.
The sharply divergent positions, from two rivals on opposite
ends of the nuclear deal, illustrate how the contentious pact has
stirred up political challenges for leaders far beyond the U.S.
In considering the deal, Mr. Khamenei must placate Iran's
conservative hard-liners, who oppose closer ties with the U.S.
after decades of avowed distrust between the two countries, and
moderates who support a rapprochement with the Western world. Mr.
Khamenei, who has the final say over most matters of state in Iran,
threatened to torpedo the deal if economic sanctions against the
country aren't lifted entirely, rather than merely suspended.
The remarks, published by state news agency IRNA, come a day
after the White House secured enough congressional support to all
but ensure the deal's implementation.
"If the sanctions are not removed, there will be no deal," he
said. "I don't have any advice to the parliament about how to
examine it, approval or disapproval."
Both the country's Parliament and the Supreme National Security
Council, a body over which Mr. Khamenei has control, must sign off
on the nuclear deal, before it falls to Mr. Khamenei to ultimately
decide on whether it moves ahead.
Separately, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will keep
up his campaign against the nuclear deal with Iran, despite his
failed lobbying effort to scuttle it in the U.S. Congress, a senior
Israeli official said Thursday.
"Prime Minister Netanyahu has a responsibility to speak out
about the grave dangers the Iran deal presents to Israel, the
region and the world, and he will continue to do so," said the
senior Israeli official, who spoke anonymously because he wasn't
authorized to comment publicly.
Mr. Netanyahu said he believed the American public shared his
views on the Iranian threat.
"An overwhelming majority of the American public sees eye to eye
with us on the danger posed by Iran, and it's important to instill
in American public opinion in the coming decade, perhaps beyond,
the fact that Iran is the enemy of the United States. It openly
declares that," he said. "And Israel is an ally of the United
States. This understanding has important implications for our
security."
The Israeli response came after President Barack Obama succeeded
in securing enough votes in the Senate to uphold his expected veto
of a Republican-backed resolution to reject the agreement.
Mr. Netanyahu has been a vociferous opponent of the accord
reached in July between world powers and Iran to curb its nuclear
program, arguing that it leaves Tehran with the capacity to produce
nuclear weapons that could destroy Israel.
He has asserted that sanctions relief provided by the deal will
help Iran fund Islamist militants throughout the Middle East.
A deal with powers, including the U.S., U.K., France, Germany,
Russia and China, will have far-ranging economic repercussions for
Iran, limiting its nuclear program in exchange for the easing of
sanctions that have crippled its economy.
President Obama clinched enough support in the Senate to all but
ensure that the U.S. implements a deal with Iran. His
administration secured the backing of 34 senators in the Democratic
caucus, the minimum number required to guarantee the advancement of
the deal.
The endorsement means that even if Congress passes a resolution
rejecting the agreement, Mr. Obama has enough votes in the Senate
to veto the decision.
After the deal's announcement in July, Mr. Khamenei said Iran
wouldn't surrender to excessive demands and vowed not to change its
policy of supporting regional allies regardless of their frosty
relations with the U.S.
Iran has kept up ties with the regime of Syrian President Bashar
al-Assad and is a big backer of the Lebanese militant group
Hezbollah.
Critics of Mr. Netanyahu, meanwhile, called Mr. Obama's success
in Congress a resounding defeat for the prime minister, whom they
accused of souring relations with the White House while waging a
vigorous lobbying drive for congressional rejection of the Iran
deal.
"Netanyahu failed completely in his campaign," opposition leader
Isaac Herzog told Israel Radio. "He raised the bar so high that it
exacted a price, and the price is a political price in the United
States."
Write to Rory Jones at rory.jones@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
September 03, 2015 14:35 ET (18:35 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2015 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.