Since January, writes Elliott Abrams, President Obama has resorted to insinuations that only dual loyalty or the malign influence of pro-Israel lobbyists could persuade someone to object to his proposed nuclear agreement with Iran. These insinuations became most stark in his speech last week at American University:
The basic idea is simple: to oppose the president’s Iran deal means you want war with Iran, you’re an Israeli agent, you are in the pay of Jewish donors, and you are abandoning the best interests of the United States. [As the president put it in his speech last Wednesday], “congressional rejection of this deal leaves . . . one option, another war in the Middle East.” . . .
Who are these people who, [the president suggested], will be “demanding” war? The “voices being raised against this deal” are those same big donors he mentioned back in January. And AIPAC. And the American Jewish Committee and the American Jewish Congress. And Jewish members of Congress like Chuck Schumer and Eliot Engel and Ted Deutch. And it’s not just that war would be inevitable, you see: it’s that those people would be demanding war, and are behind what he called “the drumbeat of war.”
Why would these people opposing the deal be doing that? It’s their “affinity for our friend and ally Israel.” But we have to resist their arguments: “as president of the United States it would be an abrogation of my constitutional duty to act against my best judgment simply because it causes temporary friction with a dear friend and ally.” It is implicit, and very close to explicit, here that the other side wants the U.S. president to act not on our own country’s behalf but on Israel’s. This is an echo of the old “dual-loyalty” charge that has been lodged against American Jews since the day the state of Israel was established. . . .
And now Barack Obama joins the chorus. . . . His American University speech was an eloquent denunciation of those who disagree with him as warmongers with dual loyalty, who will be “demanding” war with Iran. This speech divides Americans not according to principled opinions, nor even by party, but mostly by religion. It shows disrespect for critics and lowers the tone of the important debate over Iran, but that is not its worst attribute. Once again, it shows President Obama as the divider—willing to use arguments that may or may not help him win this summer’s [debate over the Iran deal] but will surely leave an ugly mark on American politics.
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