JERUSALEM (AP) -- After feverishly trying to derail the international community's nuclear deal with Iran in recent weeks, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu now has little choice but to accept an agreement that he has derided as deeply flawed.
Netanyahu believes the six-month deal leaves Iran's military nuclear capabilities largely intact, while giving Iran relief from painful economic sanctions, undermining negotiations on the next stage. At the same time, Israel's strongest piece of leverage, the threat of a military strike on Iran, seems to be out of the question despite Netanyahu's insistence it would remain on the table.
"Today the world became a much more dangerous place because the most dangerous regime in the world made a significant step in obtaining the most dangerous weapons in the world," Netanyahu told his Cabinet on Sunday, calling the deal a "historic mistake."
He said Israel was not bound by the agreement, and reiterated Israel's right to "defend itself by itself," a veiled reference to a possible military strike against Iran.
Netanyahu has spent years warning the world against the dangers of a nuclear-armed Iran, calling it an existential threat due to Iranian references to Israel's destruction, its support of hostile militant groups on Israel's borders and its development of missiles capable of reaching Israel and beyond.
Israel also believes that a nuclear-armed Iran will provide militant groups like Lebanon's Hezbollah an "umbrella" of protection that will embolden them to carry out attacks.
As momentum for a deal built the past week, Netanyahu delivered speech after speech and held meeting after meeting, urging the world to seek better terms from Iran. Last week, he hosted French President Francois Hollande, then rushed off to Moscow for talks with President Vladimir Putin in a last-ditch attempt to alter the agreement.
Netanyahu had said that any deal must ensure that Iran's enriching of uranium - a key step toward making a nuclear bomb - must end. He also said all enriched material should be removed from the Islamic Republic, and called for the demolition of a plutonium reactor under construction.
But after the deal was announced, it was clear that Netanyahu made little headway. While freezing parts of Iran's enrichment capabilities, it will leave others, including the centrifuges that are used for enrichment, intact. The deal relies heavily on Iranian goodwill, a still-to-be-defined system of international inspections and the continued pain of sanctions that remain in place.
Yoel Guzansky, who used to monitor the Iranian nuclear program for Israel's National Security Council, said a deal that would satisfy Israel was unlikely from the outset due to differing "red lines" between Israel and the U.S.
While Israel sees any enrichment as a cause for concern, the U.S. was willing to tolerate nuclear development as long as it was unable to produce weapons, said Guzansky, who is now an analyst at the Institute for National Security Studies, a Tel Aviv think tank.
"It's a bad agreement because of what it symbolizes," he said. "It means Iran is getting an acceptance, a signature that it's a legitimate country." Even worse for Israel, he added, the agreement amounts to "acceptance of Iran as a nuclear threshold state."
U.S. officials said Sunday's deal was just a first step and further negotiations aim for a final agreement that would prevent any threat from Iran's nuclear program.
They said the relief from sanctions was minimal and that the most biting economic measures, including sanctions on Iran's vital oil industry, remained in place and more could be imposed if Iran fails to follow through.
Guzansky predicted that despite the tough rhetoric, Israel would move quickly to repair relations with the U.S., its closest and most important ally, and do everything possible to influence the outcome of the world's final-status talks with Iran.
