Iran Deal a Repeat of North Korea Agreement?

JERUSALEM, Israel -- The Obama administration and the Netanyahu government continued their campaigns to either endorse or criticize the nuclear deal with Iran. The debate took place as Congress begins its 60-day period to review the agreement.

Both Secretary of State John Kerry and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took turns on the Sunday talk shows defending their positions.

"Ronald Reagan negotiated with the former Soviet Union. Richard Nixon negotiated with what was then known as Red China. You have to negotiate sometimes with people to make the world and your country safer," Kerry told told CBS's "Face the Nation."

"And we negotiated because President Obama thought the primary challenge here was getting a nuclear weapon away from Iran and we believe that this deal does that," he added.

But Netanyahu suggested Iran had just received its "dream deal," warning the agreement was destined for the same end as the 1994 accord with North Korea.

"There was a celebrated deal just a few years ago, a nuclear deal everybody -- the international community, the scientific community -- everybody applauded it," Netanyahu said on "Face the Nation."

"It was a deal with North Korea," he continued. "That proved to be a historic deal as well. And North Korea today has a dozen nuclear bombs and is on track to get a hundred nuclear bombs. So I think that this is a repeat of the mistake of North Korea."

Meanwhile, the clock began ticking on the 60-day period for Congress to review the agreement. The Obama administration, however, plans to take the accord to the U.N. Security Council before Congress can vote.

While Kerry and Netanyahu staked out their positions and Congress began its review of the accord, crowds in Tehran shouted "Death to America."

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei vowed Iran's policy toward what he called the "arrogant" United States would not change and pledged to support its allies in the region.

"America's regional policies run counter to the Islamic Republic's policies," Khamenei said. "We will not stop supporting our friends in the region: the oppressed people of Palestine, the oppressed people of Yemen, the people and government of Syria, the people and government of Iraq, the oppressed people of Bahrain, and the true jihadists in Lebanon and Palestine."

With billions of dollars in sanctions relief, many Middle East observers fear Iran will soon be able to resupply the terror groups: Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and President Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria.

In the meantime, as one more sign of the growing tensions in the region, 47 percent of Israelis would support a unilateral strike against Iran's nuclear program.