Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned the U.S. not to make a nuclear deal with Iran in exchange for its help fighting the Islamic State (ISIS) in Iraq and Syria.
"They're going to fight ISIS anyway," Netanyahu said Thursday on Fox News Channel's
"On the Record With Greta Van Susteren."
He compared the U.S. allowing Iran to enrich uranium to allowing Syrian President Bashar Assad to have his chemical weapons back if he promises to fight ISIS.
"That's about the same absurdity," Netanyahu said.
In ongoing talks with the United States, Iran is trying to get a deal that would leave them with the ability to enrich enough uranium to make a bomb and have the sanctions lifted, Netanyahu said. "They shouldn’t get it."
Militant Islam is trying to dominate the Middle East and then take over the world, whether it is Sunni or Shiite, he said, and it's No. 1 target ultimately is the United States.
"They see you as the Great Satan," Netanyahu said of the United States. "They call us the Small Satan because we're just a frontal position, a forward position of the United States. They want to destroy us so they can get to you."
The greatest danger, he said, is that either ISIS on the radical Sunni side or Iran on the radical Shiite side getting nuclear weapons.
Israel supports President Barack Obama's effort to defeat ISIS "100 percent," Netanyahu said, "But defeating ISIS and letting Iran have the capacity to manufacture enough material for a bomb – that's to lose the war. You have to do both."
Former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton told Van Susteren he agrees with Netanyahu, but that too many in the U.S. government don't see the Iran threat.
"ISIS gets the headlines," he said. "It's obviously a threat that has to be removed. But ultimately, the country, or the terrorist group that has nuclear weapons is the one you have to be most worried about."
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