Obama has decided that two wildly unpopular policies, one foreign and one domestic, will be the final legacy of his wildly unpopular administration. The domestic policy is gun control. The foreign policy is Iranian nukes. While Americans will be disarmed, Iran will be getting ready for its ballistic missiles.
Ramming through wildly unpopular policies is what this administration does best. More than anything else, this administration will be remembered for the mix of bullying, smears, pop culture distractions, outright lies, bureaucratic sabotage and blatant lawbreaking with which it achieved its policy goals.
Iran is no different.
The sales pitch is going badly. John Kerry has probably managed to dissuade more senators by testifying than he would have if he had taken the fifth. A viral video featuring the Iran lobby’s Thomas Pickering lecturing failed movie star Jack Black on the importance of the deal earned all the wrong kind of laughs.
Too many Democrats are still sitting on the fence. Some have come out against the deal. So the White House is looking for weak points in a potential coalition against the deal.
Its opening move is a classical “Divide and Conquer” strategy that tries to split pro-Israel Democrats from Republicans. The Democrats are being told that a rejection of the deal means war with Iran. If they don’t back the deal, they will be warmongers. Those who oppose the deal with Iran will face the same anti-war coalition that targeted those Democrats who supported Bush’s overthrow of Saddam.
The deal is too unappealing to be sold on its merits, so it is instead being presented as the only alternative to a war. Obama and Kerry love nuance when it comes to finding all the positive
sides to making deals with Iran or the Taliban, but quickly abandon it at home in favor of a polarized argument in which opponents of their latest terrorist appeasement are warmongers and traitors.
Jewish Democrats, in particular, are being told that Israel and Jews will be blamed for such a war.
John Kerry has already come out and said that Israel will be blamed. That’s nothing new for the Democratic Party. It wasn’t that long ago when Senator Hollings was claiming that Bush had invaded Iraq and passed tax cuts for the “Jewish vote”. To Jon Stewart, Obama referenced the Iraq War and suggested that the people against the deal “are not going to be making sacrifices” if there is a war.
That type of rhetoric sounded better coming from politicians who had served in the military, instead of a career community organizer who refers to a “Corpse-man” and uses Marines as umbrella stands.
Jewish Democrats who oppose the deal will be “Senator Lieberman-ed”, primaried by the left, smeared and added to the list of neo-con warmongers. Non-Jewish Democrats may be allowed a place at the table, like Kerry or Hillary, but only after they serve a penal term of appeasement as Secretary of State.
The Pollard release meanwhile begins the process of splitting Republicans from a pro-Israel coalition. The leverage is once again accusations of treason. Obama’s supporters showed where their argument was bound to end up when they spread the #47Traitors hashtag targeting Senators opposed to the deal.
Israel certainly hadn’t arranged for Pollard’s release. The administration isn’t being accommodating or trying to win over anyone. It’s calculatedly turning a former spy into a
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam.
OBAMA GOES NUCLEAR ON IRAN DEAL OPPONENTS
Republicans who oppose the deal will be tarred as traitors