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Bibi Takes His Case Against Iran Deal to Twitter

Meanwhile, there’s some optimism that a deal can be made next week

by
Adam Chandler
November 15, 2013

He’s drawn cartoons. He’s given speech after speech and delivered clarion call after clarion call. Now, one of the most verbose political lecturers of this era, son of an academic who penned thousand-word tomes about medieval history, is bringing the word to Twitter.

For a man with 187,000+ followers, Benjamin Netanyahu’s tweeted less than 800 times–a digital pittance. But now he’s stepping up his game as the the nuclear negotiations between the P5+1 Group and Iran prepare to reconvene next week. This morning, he (or, most likely, his social media manager) tweeted out a graphic that outlined the problematic contours of the deal with Iran.

Retweet and send this important message to the world pic.twitter.com/C1wcYK1d2o



— Benjamin Netanyahu (@netanyahu) November 15, 2013

Unfortunately, Iran’s stated right to enrich uranium seems to be one of the sticking points of the negotiations and long a talking point of the regime. Others have pushed back effectively against the idea that the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons grants Iran (or anyone really) said right.

In the meantime, earlier today an Obama administration official sought to raise expectations that a deal can be ironed out.

“I don’t know if we will reach an agreement. I think it is quite possible that we can, but there are still tough issues to negotiate,” the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told reporters.

Seeking to temper the anger of those opposed to easing sanctions on Iran, the official also said that the estimates of how much money will be involved in sanctions relief–anywhere from $15 billion to $50 billion–have been “wildly exaggerated.” From the looks of it, not everyone is going to be convinced. The Emergency Coalition for Israel released an ad suggesting that President Obama’s rhetorical failings on healthcare is proof that he will fail to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. Not sure what good such an ad does, but there it is.

Have a good weekend.

Adam Chandler was previously a staff writer at Tablet. His work has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Atlantic, Slate, Esquire, New York, and elsewhere. He tweets @allmychandler.