Past Ahmadi and Bibi

The real “nuclear weapon” that terrifies Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is the potential opening of relations between Iran and the United States. Netanyahu fears a final deal on the Iranian nuclear file will lead Iran’s moderate majority toward an economic and security partnership with his key ally, the United States.

Most serious nuclear analysts believe the present nuclear deal will annually freeze Iran’s program from weaponizing for at least a decade, a best case non-military solution.

{mosads}Yet the greatest guarantee keeping Iranian hardliners and their nuclear ambitions in check is the strength of Iran’s moderate populace. Iran, a country 70 percent under the age of 30, is rapidly reforming its government from within and reaching out to the world for renewed security and economic pacts. A nuclear deal will deliver that majority’s blow to supporters of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his tit for tat game with the likes of Netanyahu.

Netanyahu, with countless nuclear weapons in his arsenal, could not have truly feared Ahmadinejad’s hollowed threats of Israeli annihilation. Over the past decade, the two men have utilized each other’s threats to stay in power. But now Iran has moved on from Ahmadinejad and Netanyahu faces his biggest fear, an economic and democratized Iran.

Netanyahu has worked hard to keep Israel’s neighbors weak and radicalized so to cry wolf and lobby world opinion against them. Though this policy is terribly dangerous for the long term security of Israel.

Oil will soon run dry in the Mid-East and the international powers to be will slowly leave, but Israel’s neighbors will forever remain. A new generation of Iranians and Israelis have realized this inevitable reality and are striving to create an economic and secure community of regional nations.

Fringe groups like ISIS have for years been utilized and glorified by the likes of Ahmadinejad and Netanyahu to steer fear within their voters. But ISIS’s creed makes up less than 1percent of the Mid-East’s population. Many Israelis and Iranians within their political establishments are empowering and showcasing the majority’s desire for regional stability. They look to the United States and the European Union and ask, why not the Mid-East Union? Seventy years ago that concept was just as laughable in war torn Europe as it is in today’s Middle East.

If a nuclear deal is struck, Iran’s weapons ambition will be annually checked, and far more importantly, the majority of Iranians will be emboldened to forge ahead in shaping an economic and secure relationship with their negotiating partners that can benefit the masses from Tel Aviv to Tehran.

Ahmadinejad and Netanyahu can remain terrified of that reality. We will move on. 

Farahat is an Iranian-American actor. He was a co-star in the Academy Award winning film Argo and is active promoting human rights in Iran.