The Iran deal will provide Iran with a cash windfall as sanctions are eased and assets are unfrozen. The total amount is estimated to be as high as $150 billion. If so, the Iran deal would give more cash to Iran than the $124.3 billion U.S. has given in total aid to Israel since 1948.

Five former U.S. ambassadors to Israel sent a letter to Congress in favor of the Iran nuclear deal.

James Cunningham, William Harrop, Daniel Kurtzer, Thomas Pickering and Edward Walker Jr. signed the letter, along with R. Nicholas Burns, former undersecretary of state for political affairs and ambassador to NATO, and Frank Wisner, former undersecretary of state for international security affairs and undersecretary of defense for policy, the Times of Israel reported.

“No agreement between multiple parties can be perfect or without risks,” the letter states. “We believe that without this agreement, however, the risks will be much higher for the United States and Israel. We see no fatal flaws that should call for the rejection of this agreement and have not heard any viable alternatives from those who oppose the implementation” of the deal.

The Israel Defense Force began a surprise three-day drill to test its readiness Monday, with thousands of reservists ordered to local bases.

Turkey's energy minister says an explosion on a natural gas pipeline between Iran and Turkey caused a large fire and shut down the flow of gas.

Taner Yildiz said Tuesday the explosion was in Agri province, some 15 kilometers from the Iranian border, and he suggested Kurdish rebels were to blame. He said the fire was quickly brought under control.

Dermer tells USA Today that while Israel and the U.S. disagree about the Iran deal, Jerusalem has no doubt that the Obama administration is sincere in its belief that it will make America and Israel safer.

It seems to be a winning formula for Versus, Alan gives the right-wing/GOP guest plenty of rope to hang themselves with and they always do. That's because guests like John Bolton have a very frightening way of thinking. War, war, war is the only thing they want, and that should terrify Americans!

U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Sunday he has no expectation of persuading Israeli leaders to drop their opposition to the Iran nuclear deal, but will instead emphasize that the accord imposes no limits on what Washington can do to ensure the security of Israel and U.S. Arab allies.

"Our ability to carry out that strategy is unchanged," Carter told reporters aboard his plane en route to Tel Aviv.

The Obama administration reserves the right to use military force against Iran if necessary, he added, although the nuclear deal is intended to preclude that by resolving the issue diplomatically.

An overwhelming majority of Americans oppose providing any special compensation to the state of Israel in order to assuage its concerns about the Iran nuclear deal. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opposes the Iran deal as an “existential threat” and retains Israel’s right to attack Iran.

A former White House official says the United States cannot stand independent countries, such as Russia and Iran, because they are a threat to Washington’s unilateral actions.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, who was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal, made the remarks in a phone interview with Press TV on Sunday.

Large-scale military drills have been launched in Israel with the aim of testing the IDF’s readiness to go into emergency mode. Hundreds of thousands of reserve soldiers are involved in testing the system.

They will all be receiving a telephone call to confirm everything is in working order, according to the General Staff’s plan for the drills, set to last for three days.

Thousands of others will be summoned to bases on short notice, according to the Jerusalem Post. An IDF source told the newspaper that this is “one of the largest telephone call-ups we’ve had in an exercise.”

“We want to ensure that the system is well-oiled and working."

The L.A. Jewish Journal commissioned Jewish communal pollster Steven Cohen to poll American Jews on their attitude toward the Iran nuclear deal. The results are startling because they expose a huge divide between the positions of the Israel Lobby and Jewish leadership and the rest of the community. While the Lobby is preparing to spend $50-million or more in an all-out blitz to derail the deal before Congress, American Jews generally support it. Cohen finds that 49% of Jewish respondents support the deal and 31% oppose it. When asked whether Congress should support it, 53% said Yes, 35% No.

Among Jews under 40, the result was 59% in favor and 25% opposed. This confirms a rising generation gap between younger and older Jews around questions concerning Israel. This is a phenomenon that many polls have confirmed, most notably the Pew poll on American Jewish identity.

As the Iran deal becomes a reality, Washington’s neoconservatives and their allies are bristling. A sanctioned and isolated Iran had long been one of their policy pillars. This is no longer the case. The neocon agenda has experienced a major setback. Is this a temporary reversal or a stunning defeat?

The U.S. has defended Turkey's right to self-defense...

A series of Twitter posts on Sunday night followed a day after Huckabee said that President Barack Obama will march Israelis “to the door of the oven.”

Bolstering his argument of the potential harm the agreement signed by Iran and world powers earlier this month would do to Israel, Huckabee tweeted quotes from Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, among others.

“It is the mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to erase Israel from the map of the region,” read one of the posts attributed to Khamenei.

A quote attributed to Nasrallah read: “If they [Jews] all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide.”

The presidential candidate Mike Huckabee has said the deal between six world powers and Iran regarding the Islamic Republic’s nuclear ambitions will “take the Israelis and march them to the door of the oven”.

There are 18 Jewish legislators acting on behalf of the Democratic Party in the US Congress, and they are perhaps the key to victory on both sides - for both opponents of the agreement with Iran and its supporters.

"Everyone is looking for us," Rep. Alan Lowenthal (D - California), who is Jewish, told Arutz Sheva. "Last week I met with a J Street lobby that tried to explain how good the agreement is at this point in time, and next week AIPAC officials will be here - I guess to push exactly the opposite position."

Lowenthal faces a difficult dilemma.

"You have to make a decision regarding the transaction, and the situation is very tense. On the one hand Israel says the deal is not good, on the other hand the president says so."

Alan Lowenthal and another 17 like him will be forced to make the painful decision between loyalty to Israel and loyalty to US President Barack Obama's Democratic party.

Former CIA contractor Steven Kelley said the United States wants to placate Israel after Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter stated that the recent Iran’s nuclear conclusion would not prevent the US from using military force if necessary.

Others at the rally were cooler than Emerson, assuredly. But his call for a war with Iran was widely shared there. And I do not think the American people share it. Supporters of the Iran deal have been concerned by the Pew Poll showing widespread American skepticism about Iran. I believe if we highlight what opponents of the deal are saying, and what they regard as the alternatives to the deal, we can give Americans some home-grown folks to be skeptical of– and solidify support for the deal.

Below is my picture of a poster at the rally saying that Obama, Hillary Clinton, and “the same old Europe” are supporting Iran’s state plan of genocide against Jews and its use of “portable gas chambers.” I asked that guy how much of his sign he believes. “All of it.”

With the U.S. Congress beginning hearings on the nuclear accord with Iran, Israeli opponents of the agreement are readying a full-court press to persuade that the deal has too many loopholes that would allow Iran to build a nuclear weapon.

“We will make our voice heard,” Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon told McClatchy. “We will not miss an opportunity to tell our side of the story because it is our moral duty.”

One Israeli think tank at the center of the campaign is the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, whose largest donor is U.S. casino magnate and Republican benefactor Sheldon Adelson.

Capital Hill insiders say their is not enough support amongst congressional lawmakers in either the House or the Senate that could effectively kill the agreement in Congress or override Obama's veto.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told the Council on Foreign Relations think tank on Friday that should Congress rejects the nuclear deal with Iran, Israel might find itself more isolated and "more blamed by the international community."

Also on Friday, Kerry said in an interview with NBC that it would be a "huge mistake" for Israel to take unilateral military action against Iran.

Haroun Yashayaei, leader of Iran’s Jewish community, took to the local media to strongly criticize the Israeli leader and voice his support for the Iran deal.

The opinion piece, titled “Your Time Is Over, Mr. Netanyahu,” was originally published in Iran’s Shargh Daily shortly after the nuclear deal was announced and appeared last Thursday in an English translation on IranReview.org. Yashayaei, who is chairman of the board of the Tehran Jewish Committee, was blunt about his views on Netanyahu:

If the neoconservatives have their way again, U.S. ground troops will reoccupy Iraq, the U.S. military will take out Syria’s secular government (likely helping Al Qaeda and the Islamic State take over), and the U.S. Congress will not only kill the Iran nuclear deal but follow that with a massive increase in military spending.

Like spraying lighter fluid on a roaring barbecue, the neocons also want a military escalation in Ukraine to burn the ethnic Russians out of the east, and the neocons dream of spreading the blaze to Moscow with the goal of forcing Russian President Vladimir Putin from the Kremlin. In other words, more and more fires of Imperial “regime change” abroad even as the last embers of the American Republic die at home.

“Today is a historic day and it is a great honor for us to announce that we have reached an accord on the Iranian nuclear solution, to make our world safer.” Federica Mogherini, European Union high representative for foreign and security policy, said this in Vienna on July 14.

Almost simultaneously, another announcement arrived from the United States: “The U.S. Air Force and National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) have conducted the first flight test of the jointly developed B61-12 guided nuclear bomb from a Boeing F-15E Strike Eagle at the Tonopah Test Range in Nevada.” (flightglobal.com, July 10) This weapon will soon replace the U.S. nuclear bomb called B61, with between 70 and 90 of them stored in Aviano and Ghedi Torre, part of an arsenal of at least 200 nuclear weapons stored in Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Turkey.

A high-profile list of U.S. non-proliferation, nuclear policy, Iran, and national security experts welcomed last week’s announcement of a deal between the P5+1 and Iran to curb Tehran’s nuclear program. Opponents of the deal, meanwhile, will make a last-ditch effort to derail the agreement reached in Vienna. They will use the 60-day congressional review period to pressure members of Congress, many of whom owe their seats to casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, to vote to reject the deal.

The groups leading this charge may be coming from a point of disadvantage. After all, it’s a tall task to convince Congress to sabotage an agreement negotiated by the U.S., as well as its closest European and NATO allies. But the budgets behind these groups will no doubt amplify their voices, giving them an outsized influence during the next two months.

"The fact is that Iran now has extensive experience with nuclear fuel cycle technology. We can't bomb that knowledge away. Nor can we sanction that knowledge away."

Senior administration officials in Washington said on Wednesday they had reached the conclusion that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was not interested in any nuclear arrangement with Iran – except for one in which Tehran completely capitulates but is denied sanctions relief in return.

Netanyahu exaggerated the imminent nuclear threat as much as possible. Remember how many times, over the years, he cited Iran as being only six months away from a bomb? He gave the impression that Israel was prepared to take matters into its own hands by striking Iran's nuclear facilities, even without US backing. Initially, however, most analysts, including US officials, believed he was simply bluffing.

There were many reasons why the United States didn't take Netanyahu's early threats seriously. For one, Israel's capacity for sustained long-distance military operations remained limited. More important, even substantial US strikes were seen to have the capacity only to delay Iran's nuclear programme - not stop it.

Top Republicans vowed Wednesday to do their utmost to scrap President Barack Obama's nuclear deal with Iran as the biggest pro-Israel lobby prepared for an all-out campaign to pressure wary lawmakers into rejecting the agreement.

A bigger push against last week's historic accord in Vienna was being met with a counteroffensive by senior Obama administration officials, who have already spent hours on in-person and telephone briefings with members of Congress.

Secretary of State John Kerry, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew briefed the entire House of Representatives and Senate in separate closed-door sessions on Wednesday and will defend the deal at a public Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Thursday.

With Israel’s failure to convince the world not to sign the Iran deal, they had to find something new to kvetch about ….

Deputy Foreign Minister Hotovely meets European officials to demand governments stop providing cash to allegedly anti-Israel organizations.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif says the issue of reversibility to the conditions before a recent agreement between the Islamic Republic and the P5+1 is not just an option for Iran’s international partners but also for Tehran.

The Zionist lobby in the United States is using its tremendous influence in Congress to place Israel’s interest ahead of America’s, including launching more conflicts in the Middle East and trying to derail any nuclear agreement with Iran, a political commentator in Los Angeles says.

“You’ve got an Israeli-occupied US Congress that had pushed for the Iraq war for Israel,” said James Morris, editor of America-hijacked.com, a blog charting the influence of the Jewish lobby.

“And those same Israel-first Jewish neoconservative want a war with Iran and the way they think they can get that done is by derailing the Iran deal with their proxies in the US Congress,” Morris told Press TV on Wednesday.

“They’re nothing but traitors to America, pushing another war for Israel vs. Iran like they did with Iraq,” he added.

The widespread Israeli media coverage of the nuclear agreement between six world powers and Iran was accompanied by bitter cries of politicians from right and left alike who described the deal as a national disaster. This overpowered the important voices of those who argued that the agreement would actually improve Israel’s position, and not the reverse.

Tehran should release US citizens detained by the Iranian government and assist in finding an American who went missing in the country, US President Barack Obama said on Tuesday at the 116th Veterans of Foreign Wars national convention in Pittsburgh.

“Journalist Jason Rezaian should be released, pastor Saeed Abedini should be released, Amir Hekmati, a former sergeant in the US Marine Corps, should be released,” Obama said. “Iran needs to help us find Robert Levinson."

The president added the United States will not relent until “unjustly detained” Americans come home.

'It is ironic that the distinguished Ambassador of the United States (Samantha Power) accused my Government of destabilizing the region and terrorism.'

The country that invaded two countries in our region and created favorable grounds for the growth of terrorism and extremism is not well placed to raise such an accusation against my country, Khoshrou said.

He noted that feckless and reckless acts of the United States in our region for so many years are at the root of many challenges that we are now facing in our neighborhood.

Prime Minister Netanyahu’s scare tactics aren’t a revelation of Iran’s power but of his own weakness in terms of the deal’s ratification. He expects the American people to believe impossible things about the Iranians. It’s not that there’s a single dictator like North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, who could be imagined perhaps to break with reality and commit suicide via nuclear. No, Netanyahu wants us to believe that a vast network of actors—the ayatollahs and the president and their advisors and staffs, the negotiators for the recent deal, their own staffs, et al—are all waiting for the day when they can end the comfort and power and wealth they’ve worked so hard to gain. To say that it strains credulity is an understatement. How much of what Netanyahu says is similarly overblown? Israel does face threats from groups at its borders. How do we evaluate those threats as Netanyahu describes them now that his capacity for insane hyperbole is fully known? Is Hamas the threat he says it is?

The Iranian defense minister has ruled out any access to the country’s military sites and information by foreign parties.

“We will by no means allow any [foreign] authority access to our military and security secret," said Iran's Defense Minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan, noting that the resolution of outstanding past and present issues "have been agreed on with the [International Atomic Energy] Agency and we will act accordingly.”

Iran’s Foreign Ministry says UN Security Council Resolution 2231 does not cover the Islamic Republic’s military capabilities including its ballistic missiles.

Iran will continue to enhance its defense capabilities to safeguard its sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity against any potential acts of aggression as well as the threat of terrorism in the region, the Iranian Foreign Ministry said in a statement issued on Monday after the Security Council adopted the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

While the UN Security Council passed the Iran deal in a unanimous 15-0 vote on Monday, Iran’s parliament, the Islamic Constituent Assembly, or Majlis, holds the power to revise or delay key parts of the nuclear deal with Iran–even as President Barack Obama and world powers seek a UN Security Council resolution before the U.S. Congress can review the deal.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) said over the weekend that the next president of the United States needed to be prepared to take aggressive military action on their very first day in office, including against Iran.

Heading to Israel today, Defense Secretary Ash Carter once again talked up the idea of the US, having reached a nuclear deal with Iran, just up and attacking Iran out of nowhere, saying that’s one of the best things about the nuclear deal.

Israeli arms dealers twice tried to send spare parts for fighter planes to Iran, The Telegraph has established, flouting an international arms embargo and openly contradicting the bitter enmity between the Jewish state and the Islamic regime.

The illegal shipments are now being investigated by the US Homeland Security Department after they were intercepted by authorities in Greece.

The potentially explosive revelation came as six world powers resumed negotiations with Iran in Vienna aimed at reaching a long-term agreement over Tehran’s nuclear programme.

The agreement has reduced the chance of a US attack on Iran, which is a great development. But the interventionists will not give up so easily. Already they are organizing media and lobbying efforts to defeat the agreement in Congress. Will they have enough votes to over-ride a presidential veto of their rejection of the deal? It is unlikely, but at this point if the neocons can force the US out of the deal it may not make much difference. Which of our allies, who are now facing the prospect of mutually-beneficial trade with Iran, will be enthusiastic about going back to the days of a trade embargo? Which will support an attack on an Iran that has proven to be an important trading partner and has also proven reasonable in allowing intrusive inspections of its nuclear energy program?

Say Congress rejects this deal. Then Obama vetoes it. Then, in no small part because of AIPAC’s balls-to-the-wall lobbying against the deal, Republican hawks manage to peel off enough Democrats to override the veto. Then Obama is blocked by law from waiving Iran sanctions, and the nuclear deal collapses before implementation even begins. The big question: Then what?

AIPAC insists that the “alternative to this bad deal is a better deal,” but how does one get there? One way would be to say to the Iranians, Uh, hey guys. That was tough for you, but you gotta give us more, because of the Israel Lobby. But that’s not going to work: the 20 months of talks since the signing of the interim accord in Geneva—which AIPAC did not publicly object to—were a painstaking affair marked by compromises and concessions.

As the United Nations Security Council endorsed a deal Monday to curb Iran’s nuclear program in return for relief from sanctions, Republicans blasted President Obama for seeking international approval before Congress can review the agreement.

Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican, said Mr. Obama’s decision to go to the U.N. before Congress “is an affront to the American people.”

Israel is preparing to deliver a list of aircraft and weapons it wants from the USA as a “compensation package” for the recent agreement with Iran that limited Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.

It wouldn’t be the first time he’s gone nuts either.

Earlier in the year, we picked out the top 10 points from Netanyahu’s speech to congress proving he had gone completely mad. He’s apparently out to go one better now the Iran Deal has passed, claiming that we can’t allow Iran to ‘have their yellow cake and eat it too’. Hilarious…

Despite the sane among us seeing the deal as a world historic moment that could mark the beginning of an incredibly prosperous relationship with Iran, Netanyahu has a lot of problems with the deal. Hillary Clinton has put on a facade of contentment, underlined with a promise to essentially go to war with Iran if things go sour.

In the following video, Trends Forecaster Gerald Celente explains exactly why Netanyahu has gone NUTS over the Iran deal…

A new poll published by the Israeli newspaper Maariv and cited by the Times of Israel reports that a plurality of Israelis support a military strike against Iran in the wake of the lopsided agreement negotiated by President Barack Obama’s team with Iran in Vienna this week.

Ostensibly angered by the successful conclusion of nuclear talks between Iran and six world powers, the Al Saud regime has threatened to “resolutely” confront the Islamic Republic over any alleged “mischief” in the region.

Following a Thursday meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry in Washington, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said Riyadh is “committed to confront” the Islamic Republic should Iran “try to cause mischief in the region.”

He made the comments only two days after Iran and the P5+1 states reached a conclusion on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in the Austrian capital city of Vienna.

The success of Iran-P5+1 nuclear talks is viewed by political experts as a major blow to Israel and Saudi Arabia, who have been the two major critical voices seeking to throw a monkey wrench in the diplomatic process.

Cancel your summer vacations.

That was the order AIPAC’s executive director, Howard Kohr, gave his employees in a staff meeting convened this week at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee after the United States announced the Iran nuclear deal.

With the influential pro-Israel lobby group pushing for Congress to reject the deal negotiated by the Obama administration, it’s all hands on deck. Lay leaders, too, are canceling their summer plans, and AIPAC activists already are calling lawmakers and hitting synagogue listservs with appeals to can the plan.

Israel will seek to increase the aid it receives from the United States, used mostly on defense, as U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter is set to visit the country next week.

Israeli defense officials believe certain aspects of the U.S. aid package may be strengthened, such as additional funding for the development of defense systems and the restocking of ammunition after last year's Israel-Gaza 50-day war, according to The Jerusalem Post.

An additional squadron of F-35 fighter jets may also be included in a future U.S. aid package. Israel will also want to improve its Iron Dome rocket defense system and its cyberdefense systems.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been one of most vocal opponents of the Iran nuclear deal. To allay his concerns, a former top advisor to President Obama has recommended providing Israel with B-52 bunker-busting bombers.

The latest in a long line of Israeli officials railing about the P5+1 nuclear deal with Iran, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon talked up the idea that it posed a major threat to Israel, and meant the nation has to prepare a military option against Iran, as though Israel hasn’t been doing that for decades.

More importantly, Ya’alon become the first Israeli official to publicly talk about the actual end-game in all of this for Israel, a massive “compensation” package by the US government to Israel to placate them after the Iran deal.