Bibi and Barack Butt Heads Over Iran

Netanyahu wanted the U.S. to get tough to prevent a nuclear Iran. Obama wanted to kick the can down the road.” So the Israeli PM drew a red line of his own

- Benjamin Netanyahu

Benjamin Netanyahu is the longest-serving Israeli prime minister, from 1996-1999 and 2009-2021, and is now facing another election as head of the Likud party on November 1. In his new, wide-ranging autobiography, BIBI: MY STORY (Threshold Editions), Netanyahu shares details from his brother's death at Entebbe; his personal and political relationships; his negotiations with Presidents Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Donald Trump over the Arab-Israeli conflict, Iran and the Abraham Accords; how Israel secured some of the first doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine; accusations of corruption and much more. Through his long career, Netanyahu's brand of Israeli security has often brought him into conflict with others-his famously tense dealings with Obama among them. This exclusive excerpt from Netanyahu's new autobiography offers a window into a flashpoint in their relationship-the Iran nuclear program. It shows how the red line Netanyahu drew set the stage for continued conflict between the U.S. and Israel on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)-or Iranian nuclear deal-that Obama ultimately signed in 2015 and from which Donald Trump withdrew three years later.

ON MARCH 5, 2012, I MET PRESIDENT BARACK Obama in the Oval Office. Reviewing the deteriorating situation in Syria under its dictator, Bashar Assad, son of the previous dictator, Hafez Assad, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, "Apparently Bashar's mother is telling him, 'Your father would have done this, your father would have done that." "I didn't know Bashar had a Jewish mother," I said, and then, looking at Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, I corrected myself: "Sorry, an Italian mother." (Actually, except for my education, my mother never nudged me on anything.) Everybody laughed, Leon the loudest. A former congressman, he was savvy and down-to-earth, lacking any of the ideological antipathies that animated many of his colleagues. He liked Israel, and I liked him.