In a speech last week about Iran’s nuclear agreement with the West, which is supposed to monitor his country’s nuclear facilities over the next 25 years, Iran’s spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said: “I say [to Israel] that you will not live to see the end of these 25 years. With the help of Allah, there will no longer be anything called the Zionist regime in another 25 years. Until that happens, the struggle and the jihad will not give the Zionists a single moment of serenity.”
In saying this, Khameinei is reassuring his people: The nuclear agreement with the West does not obligate Iran to stop supporting terror. And now, he is insinuating, that support will actually increase with the lifting of the economic sanctions on his country as part of the deal. Israelis hearing that speech could not help feeling a slight shiver up and down their spines or asking themselves whether a parallel universe exists in which Iran signs a different agreement—one that limits its support of terror, an agreement in which Israel had some input in formulating its clauses. One thing is clear: If there is such a parallel universe in which Israel’s future is slightly more secure, Benyamin Netanyahu is not its prime minister.