Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is insisting that a strategy of containment would not work to stop Iran's nuclear program and is calling for the United States to impose "red lines" that could lead to military action.
" Iran is guided by a leadership with an unbelievable fanaticism," the prime minister told NBC's David Gregory in an interview that aired on Sunday. "You want these fanatics to have nuclear weapons?"
"I mean I heard some people suggest, David -- I actually read this in the American press -- they said, 'Well, you know, if you take action, that's a lot worse than having Iran with nuclear weapons,'" he said of a potential military strike. "Some have even said that Iran with nuclear weapons would stabilize the Middle East, stabilize the Middle East."
"I think the people who say this have set a new standard for human stupidity."
While Netanyahu has called for action soon rather than later, President Barack Obama has said that his "red line" was a nuclear-armed Iran.
The president told Telemundo on Wednesday that he had "stated repeatedly, publicly, that red line - and that is we're not going to accept Iran having a nuclear weapon."
Watch this video from NBC's Meet the Press, broadcast Sept. 16, 2012.
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