In Blunt Speech, Obama Defends Deal With Iran

Washington: President Barack Obama took on critics of the nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers in an aggressive speech on Wednesday, saying they were the same people who created the "drumbeat of war" and played on public fears to push the United States into the Iraq war more than a decade ago.

"Let's not mince words: The choice we face is ultimately between diplomacy and some sort of war - maybe not tomorrow, maybe not three months from now, but soon," Obama told about 200 people in a speech at American University. "How can we in good conscience justify war before we've tested a diplomatic agreement that achieves our objectives?"

Obama, opening a new, more overtly political phase of his public campaign for the accord, portrayed the coming vote in Congress to approve or reject the deal as the most consequential foreign policy decision for lawmakers since Congress voted in 2003 to authorize the invasion of Iraq. He implored them to "shut out the noise" and back the deal.

Delivered in stark terms that surprised some foreign policy analysts and left no room for question whether the agreement is good for U.S. security - "It's not even close," Obama declared at one point - the president's speech was a striking display of certitude about a diplomatic deal that has split the U.S. public and presented a dilemma for lawmakers, including many in his own party.

Obama criticized Republicans who are pressing forward with legislation to block the accord, which is on track for a vote in September. Opposition to the agreement, he said, stems from "knee-jerk partisanship that has become all too familiar, rhetoric that renders every decision made to be a disaster, a surrender."

He said hard-liners in Iran who chant "Death to America" were "making common cause with the Republican caucus."

Lawmakers who oppose the deal said they were not persuaded, and some said they resented the president's tone. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the majority leader, said the speech had done a disservice to lawmakers in both parties who "have serious and heartfelt concerns."

"These Democrats and Republicans deserved serious answers today, not some outrageous attempt to equate their search for answers with supporting chants of 'Death to America,'" McConnell said, adding that Democrats who had declared their opposition would be "especially insulted" by the president's remarks. "This goes way over the line of civil discourse."

In his speech, the president invoked the legacy of John F. Kennedy, who in 1963 appeared on the same campus to push for a nuclear test ban treaty with the Soviet Union. But in making his case, Obama was also returning to a theme that helped him rise to power.

As a first-term senator, Obama gained political prominence in part because of his strong opposition to the war in Iraq. It helped him win the 2008 Democratic nomination - defeating Hillary Rodham Clinton, who backed the invasion and later became his secretary of state - and the presidency.

Now as a second-term president working to defend an ambitious diplomatic nonproliferation accord with Iran and protect his legacy, Obama is conjuring the anti-war fervor that animates his party's liberal base.

Aaron David Miller, a Middle East expert at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars who has served in Republican and Democratic administrations, said that Obama's speech seemed intended to leave no doubt "that those who oppose it are either uninformed or, in the case of the Iraq war comparison, recklessly marching to the next war in the Middle East."

Miller called the speech a "stunning" show of boldness by a president who feels empowered in the final stages of his presidency to pursue an accord he believes could be transformational. "There is a real danger here for him in overselling" the deal to a skeptical Congress, he said.

In making his case, Obama made an unusual, personal appeal to voters - more in keeping with a 30-second political television advertisement than a foreign policy address - urging them to contact their representatives and press them to accept the deal, which would lift some sanctions against Iran in exchange for new restrictions meant to suppress its ability to obtain a nuclear weapon.

"Remind them of who we are; remind them of what is best in us and what we stand for," Obama said.

Obama also used the address to indirectly confront pro-Israel groups, led by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, which are sending hundreds of activists to lobby lawmakers to reject the deal and are planning to run more than $25 million in television advertising to rally opposition to it. The struggle is playing out this month as members of Congress leave Washington to face voters in their home states and districts.

"If the rhetoric in these ads and the accompanying commentary sounds familiar, it should," Obama said. "Many of the same people who argued for the war in Iraq are now making the case against the Iran nuclear deal."

AIPAC on Wednesday responded forcefully to the president's characterization of its campaign of opposition to the deal.

"To remove any misinformation or confusion, AIPAC took no position whatsoever on the Iraq war, nor did we lobby on this issue - this is an entirely false and misleading argument," said Marshall Wittmann, the group's communications director.

"It is our belief," Wittmann continued, "that this agreement could lead to more terrorism, further regional conflict, spur nuclear proliferation and would fail to block Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. The alternative to this bad deal is definitely not war, but rather going back to the negotiating table and getting a better deal."

That has been the contention of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, who has gone to unusual lengths to stoke U.S. opposition to the deal, appearing before Congress in March to deliver an address denouncing it, and on Tuesday speaking to a webcast of more than 10,000 U.S. Jews. Obama used his own speech to counter the Israeli prime minister as well, calling the "better deal" that Netanyahu advocates impossible.

"I do not doubt his sincerity, but I believe he is wrong," Obama said.

Obama's tone came as a surprise to some political and policy analysts who said he had delivered a speech that seemed intended to stoke fear instead of foster discussion.

David Makovsky of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said that even though the White House had been effective at privately engaging skeptics of the deal on its merits, Obama appeared to be "hyping" his case to the public, perhaps in an effort to match the incendiary language of his opponents.

"These two sides are just playing off each other, and they're just going to drive this debate off a cliff," Makovsky said. "You come to expect a certain high road in political persuasion from this president, and if he feels that the critics are being unfair, call them on that, but don't say, 'I see your low road, and I'm going to double it.'"

While Obama's comparison to the Iraq war appeared to be an effort to distinguish his own approach from that of President George W. Bush, some critics said his speech employed the same with-me-or-against-me trope associated with Bush.

"It comes remarkably close to the cartoon image that he has painted of Bush's rhetoric," said Peter D. Feaver, a political scientist at Duke who served as a national security aide to Bush from 2005 to 2007.