It is February 2015, and panic reverberates throughout the political world. From Israel to America, everyone feels the rush of anxiety. Iran is inching closer and closer to obtaining a nuclear weapon. Their current track gives them approximately five months before developing a nuclear atomic bomb. Time is ticking.

Flash forward to March of the same year. I sit in the main auditorium at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in the District of Columbia at the AIPAC Policy Conference. Tensions are running high in the nation’s capital. Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister, is slated to speak in the coming days, much to the disapproval of the White House. Through all of the mess, I listen intently as Mitch McConnell, the Republican majority leader of the Senate, and countless other congressmen from both parties express their sincere interest in keeping Iran away from nuclear capabilities and protecting Israel. I walk away from the conference dumbfounded and inspired by the sheer genuine concern and love for a country I thought to be exclusively dear to my own people. Political leaders of all races, ethnicities, religions, parties, and countries came to ensure that everybody was well aware of the things going on to ensure Israel’s safety from any potentially dangerous Iranian activity.

Zoom forward once again to this past summer. The date is July 14th. I find myself deep in exploration of one of the two countries discussed at the same conference I attended only four months prior: our Jewish homeland, Israel. Thousands of miles away, high political figures such as Barack Obama and John Kerry sign off on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, a deal with Iran concerning its nuclear power. Reading the details of the deal and realizing its implications for Israel, I shake my head in disappointment. Allow me to explain.

The deal included the following provisions: Iran will keep its uranium enriched to a maximum of 3.07 percent, whereas they enriched it to twenty percent in the past. The greater enrichment of the uranium allows for quicker development of a nuclear weapon. The drastic decrease in enrichment allows for a delay in the building of the weapon. Iran also must never have a uranium stock of over three hundred kilograms, whereas before they sometimes had a stock of ten thousand kilos. Additionally, Iran is required to convert many of their nuclear research and development facilities into science research centers which have no nuclear goals or activities. This change in facility usage must be complied with for fifteen years.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will be granted inspection rights in Iran when they are desired. This is supposed to ensure that Iran keeps to the requirements of the deal and does not start to do their own thing without regard to the deal they signed.

All of these rules and regulations seem nice, but there is obviously something in it for Iran, right? Various sanctions have been placed on Iran for a few years now in response to their persistence in gaining atomic and nuclear power. These sanctions have had a detrimental effect on the Iranian economy, draining out key resources and halting the flow of productive trade. After approximately six months of compliance with the deal on Iran’s part, the current sanctions will be lifted. Iran will gain upwards of one-hundred and fifty billion dollars as a result of the return of assets which were frozen due to the sanctions imposed by the US.

Why is this a problem? Well, the deal is simply insufficient. We have to remember who we are dealing with here. This is Iran, a regime which publicly and regularly announces its desire for the death and destruction of America and Israel. This is a country which proudly denounces and denies the Holocaust. The deal, by statistical analysis, delays the ability for Iran to go nuclear from a few months to about twelve years. This deal is pumping a few hundred billion dollars into Iran and essentially telling them, “OK, you can make your nuclear toy. You’re just going to have to wait a few years because we obviously do not want you causing mass destruction right now. Save it for later.” How can we trust a historically violent country which has given us no basis for trust? We have to understand who we are dealing with.

Unfortunately, as of Thursday, President Obama has gathered enough support in the Senate to confirm the deal. While this is very unsettling for all of the aforementioned reasons, we need to take this challenge and use it as an opportunity to unite rather than divide. Yes, a potentially nuclear Iran is a scary picture to imagine. However, we cannot let our relationship with the United States falter as a result of the signing of this deal. We have to remember the importance of that relationship and do whatever we can to strengthen it, because if that day comes when Iran violates this deal, America will be the ones by our side to ensure Iran is taken care of.