Supporters of the embattled Iran deal in the U.S. will not win if they cannot identify the foreign country that along with its domestic lobby is still trying to undermine President Obama’s signature foreign policy achievement: Israel. Thankfully, the lobby itself is split over the deal.
Trump’s policy on Iran may be driven by three Israel-loving donors, Adelson, Singer, and Marcus, but it is verboten in Washington to identify the Israel lobby as the main adversary of the Iran deal, especially in the wake of the Phil Giraldi/Valerie Plame uproar, which has fueled the neoconservative claim that the antiwar left is anti-semitic.
Former US ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro speculates Trump extracted shocking endorsement of his immigration policies from Israeli PM Netanyahu in exchange — for what? Allowing settlement expansion, or killing Iran deal, or moving embassy to Jerusalem, Shapiro speculates
Latest Democratic Party emails published by Wikileaks show Clinton campaign aides bending over backwards to please the Israel lobby and big pro-Israel donors, to balance her support for the Iran deal.
In contrast to a 2012 party platform that emphasized diplomacy with Iran, the new Democratic Party platform threatens military action and sanctions against Iran, and channels Netanyahu in saying Iran denies the Holocaust, supports Hamas, vows to eliminate Israel, and “has its fingerprints on almost every conflict in the Middle East.”
The Iran deal is still assailed by US hardliners, who don’t even hide their efforts: Adam Szubin, Obama’s under secretary of the treasury for Iranian sanctions, parrots Netanyahu’s claim that Iran is the biggest sponsor of terror in the world and speaks at neoconservative thinktanks without any consequences.
Hillary Clinton was “swayed” by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in seeking to set back the Iran negotiations in 2012 when Secretary of State John Kerry was willing to take risks to achieve the deal, according to a New York Times investigation by Mark Landler, published too late for most Democratic voters.
AIPAC still hasn’t apologized for pushing the Iraq war and for trying to undermine the Iran deal, both of which hurt American interests, but it does apologize when Trump slams President Obama, lest the comments will undermine its influence.