Even as Israel attacked an Iranian cargo ship in the Red Sea, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu used a speech at the Israeli Holocaust memorial to warn the world that a deal with Iran was “useless,” akin to making a deal with Nazis, and that Israel would take into its own hands its security against the “existential” threat that he claims Iran poses.

An AIPAC letter aimed at keeping Biden from returning to the Iran deal got only 43 signatures, which shows that Biden has the political capital he needs to reenter the deal. But he has shown a timidity, born of attacks by the rightwing Israel lobby, and won’t even lift sanctions for humanitarian purposes related to the pandemic, as he urged Donald Trump to do a year ago.

Israel has a hidden motive to kill Iranian nuclear scientist: to destroy any possibility of Joe Biden renewing the Iran deal, and “cripple” his ability to make policy. But you can’t say this inside the Beltway.

As Trump escalates the confrontation with Iran, we must remember the Vietnam war was based on a lie, so was the Iraq war, Bernie Sanders says, joining a wide array of voices from Rand Paul to Elizabeth Warren to J Street that are trying to stave off a calamity in the Middle East.