Washington equipping Israel with formidable US weapons: Richard A. Falk

American scholar Richard A. Falk says the Obama administration is seemingly equipping Israel with formidable weapons as a compensation for the Iran nuclear agreement.

Falk, American professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University and the author or co-author of some 20 books, made the remarks in an interview with Press TV on Thursday, after US President Barack Obama said he is confident that the nuclear agreement will go forward despite Republican lawmakers’ opposition.

Falk said there is a “very intense debate in the US Congress which is very much influenced by the Israeli lobbying and by big money lobbying.”  

“And this is in some ways inconsistent with the American public opinion which is strongly in favor of the agreement, including even those who identify themselves as Republicans; Democrats by a ratio of 5 to 1 are in favor of the agreement,” he added.

“So Congress at this point is very unrepresentative of the American society as a whole, and it is an unfortunate development that is connected in large part with this move of the Republican Party as a party to the far-right and to its alignment with Israel and Israel’s very active effort in the United States to work against the approval of the agreement, or at least to get heavy compensation if the agreement in the end is approved,” he continued.

“And I think it would be unfortunate if given new kinds of weapons which could potentially be used in an attack against Iran,” the American academic stated. “That’s part of a discussion in the United States… in order to persuade some Congress people that haven’t made their mind that it’s OK to vote for the agreement.”

“The Obama presidency seems to be developing a policy of equipping Israel with very formidable weapons that can be used in an attack mode. So that’s a kind overview of the situation - as I understand it - that presently exists in the United States,” concluded Falk, the former United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Iran and the P5+1 group of countries - the US, Britain, France, Russia, China, and Germany – announced the conclusion of nuclear negotiations in the Austrian capital, Vienna, on July 14.

The Obama administration is striving to save the nuclear agreement in the Republican-dominated Congress which is reviewing it and is likely to vote on it in September.

The American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and other pro-Israel lobbying groups in the US have launched a massive campaign to defeat the historic agreement in Congress.

AIPAC has reportedly deployed about 300 lobbyists on Capitol Hill to try to convince lawmakers to vote against the nuclear agreement.

According to reports, the Israel lobby is spending up to $40 million on television commercials and other propaganda material to inform the public “about the dangers of the proposed Iran deal.”

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