US military chief seeks to reassure Israel on Iran threat
America's top general sought to reassure Israel on June 9 of "unshakable" US military support, despite deep strains in political relations over the prospect of a US-led nuclear deal with Iran and differences over Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy.
US General Martin Dempsey, on a visit to Israel, said he shared a core Israeli fear that sanctions relief for Iran following a nuclear agreement would allow Tehran to give more money to its military and its guerrilla proxies.
"I think that they will invest in their surrogates. I think they will invest in additional military capability," Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a small group of reporters in Jerusalem.
But Dempsey said the long-term prospects were "far better" with an Iran that was not a nuclear weapons power. He reassured Israeli defense officials that Washington would work to mitigate Iran-related risks, with or without a deal.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has presented the planned nuclear deal as a threat to Israel. US President Barack Obama, addressing Israeli television last week, renewed his assertion that a deal would do a better job than air strikes in preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear weapons power, an ambition Iran denies.
As the end-June deadline for an Iran nuclear deal approaches, Dempsey said the United States and Israel had to be prepared for either success or failure in the talks.