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Israel Resumes Campaign Against Iran
(AP-Washington Post) Josef Federman - Israeli officials are planning a fight to shape a final agreement on Iran's nuclear program that negotiators hope to reach in six months. Israeli officials say the final deal must roll back the achievements they say has made Iran a threshold nuclear weapons state. On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would dispatch his national security adviser, Yossi Cohen, to Washington in the coming days to coordinate the next move with the Americans. "This permanent agreement has to lead to one result: dismantling the Iranian nuclear military capability," Netanyahu said. To Israel, a nuclear-armed Iran threatens its very survival, with hostile Iranian rhetoric referring to Israel's destruction, Iran's support for militant Arab groups along Israel's borders, and Iran's development of long-range missiles capable of reaching the Jewish state. For Washington, Iran is a distant issue, one of a plethora of difficult challenges it is facing. "The final status should be that Iran cannot remain a threshold nuclear country, that Iran cannot remain one or two steps from the bomb," Israeli Minister for Intelligence Affairs Yuval Steinitz told European diplomats.