In an interview with the comedian Jon Stewart, the president stated his hope that Americans and their elected representatives will come to see the wisdom of the Iran deal, and then added: “despite the money, despite the lobbyists.” Lee Smith writes:

“What do you mean by lobbyists?” the man some viewers regard as the Cronkite of our age never asked the president. It was a lost opportunity to gain some clarity into President Obama’s thinking about America’s Middle East policy, since he has used the formulation often. For instance, in a press conference following the signing of the [accord with Iran], Obama said that he hoped Congress would evaluate this agreement fairly, “not based on lobbying, but based on what’s in the national interests of the United States of America.”

In his efforts to get the deal through Congress, Obama is . . . hinting broadly at anti-Semitic conceits—like dual loyalties, moneyed interests, Jewish lobby—to scare off Democrats tempted to vote against [it] because they think it’s a bad deal. If they do come out against the agreement—if they line up, for instance, with the new organization AIPAC formed, Citizens for a Nuclear Free Iran—to warn the public “about the dangers of the proposed Iran deal,” then he’s going to tar them as dual loyalists who are willing to send Americans out to make war on behalf of Jewish causes.

In his speech to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, Joe Biden addressed a host of international issues, mentioning, inter alia, the “positive and practical impacts” resulting from “Israel’s greater normalization and economic connection with its neighbors.” He then added that the U.S. will “continue to work tirelessly to support a just and lasting peace between the Israelis and Palestinians—two states for two peoples.” Zach Kessel experiences some déjà vu:

Let’s take a stroll down memory lane and review how past U.S.-brokered talks between Jerusalem and [Palestinian leaders] have gone down, starting with 1991’s Madrid Conference, organized by then-President George H.W. Bush. . . . Though the talks, which continued through the next year, didn’t get anywhere concrete, many U.S. officials and observers across the world were heartened by the fact that Madrid was the first time representatives of both sides had met face to face. And then Palestinian militants carried out the first suicide bombing in the history of the conflict.

Then, in 1993, Bill Clinton tried his hand with the Oslo Accords:

In the period of time directly after the Oslo Accords . . . suicide bombings on buses and in crowded public spaces became par for the course. Clinton invited then-Palestinian Authority chairman Yasir Arafat and then-Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak to Camp David in 2000, hoping finally to put the conflict to rest. Arafat, who quite clearly aimed to extract as many concessions as possible from the Israelis without ever intending to agree to any deal—without even putting a counteroffer on the table—scuttled any possibility of peace. Of course, that’s not the most consequential event for the conflict that occurred in 2000. Soon after the Camp David Summit fell apart, the second intifada began.

Since Clinton, each U.S. president has entered office hoping to put together the puzzle that is an outcome acceptable to both sides, and each has failed. . . . Every time a deal has seemed to have legs, something happens—usually terrorist violence—and potential bargains are scrapped. What, then, makes Biden think this time will be any different?