Biden: If Using Force on Iran Is the Last Resort, 'I Will Use It'

United States President Joe Biden told Israel's Channel 12 that he would not hesitate to use force to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, "if that was the last resort."

Channel 12 anchor Yonit Levi recorded an interview with the president at the White House, a day before Biden's flight to Israel. The interview was aired in Israel on Wednesday evening.

"The only thing that is worse than the Iran that exists now is Iran with nuclear weapons," Biden said. In an attempt to explain his administration's insistence on nuclear talks to revive the 2015 JCPOA nuclear deal, the president stressed that a return to the deal would "hold them tight."

"I think it was a gigantic mistake for the last president to get out of the deal. They're closer to a nuclear weapon now than they were before," he said. For the president, a return to the nuclear deal still "makes sense," he said, but that "it is up to Iran now" to make a choice.

"We have laid it out on the table. We've made a deal; we've offered it," he stated.

In response to widespread Israeli claims that the nuclear deal does not pertain to Iran's malign regional activities, Biden said that the U.S. can act against the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) in Iran and "still have a deal that will contain the nuclear program."