BO: US Could ‘Penetrate’ Iran S-300 Defense System -President Says America Could Bypass Russian-Made Missiles If It Must, Warns Iran Not to Send Weapons to Yemen + Video

Times of Israel

US President Barack Obama warned that the US could penetrate any air defense system Iran has, should a military option be needed, playing down concerns over Russia’s decision to supply advanced S-300 surface-to-air missiles to Tehran last week.

“Even if they’ve got some air defense systems, if we had to, we could penetrate them,” Obama told MSNBC late Tuesday.

The US president urged to keep things “in perspective,” noting that the US defense budget was “somewhere just a little under $600 billion. Theirs is a little over $17 billion.”

“This is a sale that’s been pending for six years,” Obama said. “It’s of concern, we object to it, particularly because right now we’re still negotiating [a nuclear agreement].”

The US-led P5+1 world powers were negotiating a nuclear deal with Iran to curb its atomic program, with a final deal set to be penned by June 30. Talks are set to resume in Vienna later this week. The initial framework, known as the Lausanne agreement, has been criticized as not having extracted enough concessions from Tehran and being too soft on the Islamic Republic, leaving it with too many capabilities to break out to the bomb and not being tough enough regarding the lifting of sanctions.

Last week, Obama indicated that the US was open to discussing the immediate lifting of sanctions on Iran, as demanded by Tehran but contrary to what the initial agreement calls for.

Israel, particularly, has been a vocal opponent of the deal, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying the deal would threaten the very survival of Israel and would pave the way for Iran to become a nuclear states.