Schumer: ‘I don’t trust these Iranians’

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in an interview broadcast Sunday that, regardless of controversy over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress this week, the U.S. must make sure Iran doesn’t get a nuclear weapon.

{mosads}During an interview on a New York radio show, Schumer described how far U.S.-led negotiators should go to force Iran to abandon its nuclear weapons, including the types of inspection regimes.

“My view is that it has to be a really tough inspection regime, because I don’t trust these Iranians,” Schumer told “The Cats Roundtable” host John Catsimatidis on AM 970.

“And then, how deep can we push sanctions if the Iranians won’t go along with a good deal?” Schumer asked.

Netanyahu will address Congress on Tuesday to rally opposition to a potentially unsatisfactory deal over Iran’s nuclear program, which he has described as an existential threat to Israel.

President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry won’t attend the speech because it falls two weeks before Netanyahu is up for reelection, and Vice President Biden will be in Latin America. More than two dozen House Democrats and a handful of Senate Democrats plan to skip the speech, according to The Hill’s tally, which they view as an affront to the White House.

Schumer acknowledged that he “didn’t like” the manner in which Netanyahu agreed to come to the United States at the invitation of Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), “but all the name-calling and finger-pointing about that is much less important than two things: making sure that Iran doesn’t get a nuclear weapon … and affirming the strength of the American-Israel relationship,” he said.

“We have a huge problem at our doorstep, which is a nuclear Iran. Iran is on the list of terrorist nations. Iran has caused the death, directly or indirectly, of hundreds of Americans [through] terrorist acts. And they want to dominate the Middle East,” Schumer said on the radio show, mentioning Iranian moves involving Yemen, Syria and Lebanon.

Schumer noted that he was one of the first Democrats to commit to going to Netanyahu’s speech, “because the American-Israeli relationship, and showing respect for the state of Israel, is more important than all of these little kerfuffles in the road.”