Will Iran freeze its nuclear weapons program?

Charles Krauthammer reacts to the nuclear talks with Iran

This is a RUSH transcript from "The O'Reilly Factor," July 15, 2014. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

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In "Back of the Book" segment tonight, according to published reports, Iran says it will agree to freeze its nuclear weapon program but not destroy it, as the U.S.A. and other western countries are demanding.

Secretary of State Kerry, leading negotiations in Vienna. Joining us now from Washington to predict what will happen this weekend, Charles Krauthammer, author of the book, "Things that Matter."

All right, I believe this issue was under-reported. American people don't really understand what's at stake here. And what's at stake is war.

Because there's no way Israel is going to accept Iran continuing to develop a nuclear weapon. And you say.

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: And, also, it's not just Israel. This is, in the longer run, this is the most serious threat to the west.

You know, Russia is not going to invade the west. You can have an ISIS state in Iraq. It's not going to have the capacity to affect us directly.

But you talk about Iran, a serious country, 80 million people, tremendous oil resources, advanced industry, and the leading sponsor of terror in the world, according to our State Department.

It is on the threshold of becoming a nuclear power. It is openly developing intercontinental ballistic missiles.

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Meaning, the only reason for that is a missile that can hit New York or any other city in the United States. And it is now on the threshold.

And we are actually negotiating a deal which will leave them on the threshold. This new agreement, this new leak, this new concession so- called that was said by the Foreign Minister of Iran to the "New York Times" yesterday, is essentially saying, with the six-month deadline -- remember, we had worked out a deal to negotiate for six months.

If the program was not agreed to be dismantled by then, that would be the end of it. All options are on the table. That was always a bluff.

It was always nonsense. It was always as empty as the red line Obama had in Syria.

So, here we are. Sunday is six months. And the reason the Iranian Foreign Minister floated this completely worthless proposal is to give John Kerry an excuse to go back to Washington, --

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-- which he's doing right now, to consult with the President and to say that there's enough promising in this new offer to make us extend the deadline. I assure you, that's what's going to happen.

O'REILLY: All right, so they're going to extend the deadline of negotiations and, meantime, Iran --

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-- continues to develop its nuclear weapons program.

KRAUTHAMMER: Exactly.

O'REILLY: Now, Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, told Brit Hume on Sunday that the whole thing is a farce.

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And I don't believe that Israel is going to give it much more time before they go in and start attacking some of the nuclear facilities inside Iran.

KRAUTHAMMER: But imagine the box the Israelis are in. They are the ones who are most directly, immediately threatened.

Iran has it written on the missiles, we can see it, in the parades they have. They have on them written, "Death to Israel." We know where the missiles would be headed.

It would only take three of them to destroy all of Israel in an afternoon. It took Hitler six years to destroy European jury. It would take him one day to destroy --

O'REILLY: If they have the nuclear weapon.

KRAUTHAMMER: If they have the nuclear weapon. And the problem with where they are now is the Iranians are at a what you'd call a threshold nuclear state.

They are three months, 6 months away from -- if they decided to go for a weapon, they would have it in six months. Under the proposal they're talking about now, they would simply freeze what they have now.

There's not an iota of dismantling or even taking some stuff away, let alone talk about --

O'REILLY: Well, it's just, "Well, we'll freeze where we are. We're six months away, and then we'll violate it anytime we want because that's what we do."

KRAUTHAMMER: And what they're demanding is the total relief from sanctions in return for doing nothing at all.

O'REILLY: So, what President Obama should do, in my opinion, is, come Sunday, when they don't say, "We're going to dismantle," reimpose reimpose all economic sanctions against them, which really hurt Iran, until they say they're going to start dismantling. That's pretty simple.

KRAUTHAMMER: That's what you would expect from a serious president. But, here, you've got a president whose foreign policy has collapsed everywhere, --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

-- in Ukraine, in Syria, in Iraq, he's got nothing to claim. And as Susan Rice reportedly said to the President a month ago, "We have to put points on the board."

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And what they would like to do, and they will do by extending negotiations, is to come up with a fig leaf of a deal that will appear to somehow be containing the Iranian nuclear program.

And all those who understand the details will know it will do nothing of a sort. But to give them, you know, to be able to say, "Look, we just came to a historic deal with Iran. It'll put these restrictions and, in return," --

O'REILLY: Do you think the press is going to buy it though. Do you think the American press is going to go along with that.

KRAUTHAMMER: Yes. I think the President is cynical enough about this. He is unserious enough about denying Iran a nuclear weapon that he will choose, if it comes to that, a bad deal, a fig leaf for the deal --

O'REILLY: No, but my question is, will the press allow him to do it or pound him into pudding.

KRAUTHAMMER: They will allow him to do it. A, because they're lazy. They will not actually examine the details the way they did not examine the details of the interim deal, which has done absolutely nothing --

O'REILLY: All right.

KRAUTHAMMER: -- hold back the program until now.

O'REILLY: All right, next week, Charles, you'll be back on. We'll discuss this again because, as we said, it comes to us over the weekend. We appreciate it, Charles, as always.

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