Vol. 79/No. 10      March 23, 2015

Netanyahu spoke at the invitation of the Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner, extended without consulting the president. Obama refused to meet with the Israeli prime minister, saying it was out of place coming only two weeks before elections in Israel. A few dozen Democratic legislators chose not to attend the speech.

Shortly after Netanyahu’s address, 47 Republican senators took the highly unusual step of sending an open letter to the Iranian government, saying that any nuclear deal the White House reaches with Tehran might last only as long as Obama remains in office, through January 2017.

These senators “engaged in treachery,” said a March 10 editorial in the New York Daily News, “cutting the legs out from under America’s commander-in-chief.” While opposing the pact, “we strenuously condemn their betrayal of the U.S. constitutional system.”

The agreement being proposed by Washington would last some 10 years and limit Iran’s capacity to enrich uranium, the number of centrifuges it can operate and impose a regime of “inspections” by U.N. authorities. Washington together with other members of the U.N. Security Council — China, France, Russia and the U.K. — joined by Germany have set a deadline of the end of March for Washington and Tehran to reach a deal, with a final pact to be signed by June 30.

Leaders in Tehran argue Washington’s demands are too harsh. “Iran will not accept excessive and illogical demands,” Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told Fars news agency March 3.

Zarif also took advantage of the letter from the 47 senators. “This kind of correspondence,” he said, “tells us that the United States is not trustworthy.”

Obama views reaching an agreement and ratcheting down tensions with Iran as a key foreign policy objective, and believes his skills at diplomacy and dialogue can achieve more than threats and acts of war.

Washington is also in a tacit alliance with Tehran in the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

Political figures close to Obama, such as Zbigniew Brzezinski, former national security adviser under James Carter, have said Washington will take military action to prevent Tel Aviv from bombing Iran should the Israeli rulers decide to do so alone.

To pressure Tehran to sign an agreement, Washington and its imperialist partners in Europe have imposed a series of economic sanctions, hitting working people the hardest. This has led workers to protest against layoffs, rising prices and to demand payment of back wages. Tens of thousands of teachers demonstrated outside parliament in Tehran March 1 demanding higher pay.

The Iranian government maintains its nuclear program is to produce electricity and for medical purposes, not to produce nuclear weapons, and demands the sanctions be lifted as part of the agreement.

In his speech before Congress, Netanyahu described the close alliance of Israel and the U.S. over decades, but derided the anticipated agreement as a “bad deal.” He said, “Even if Israel has to stand alone, Israel will stand.”

In a campaign speech in a West Bank settlement outside Jerusalem Feb. 25, Netanyahu said that Washington and its partners negotiating with Tehran seem to “have given up on that commitment” to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear bomb, Haaretz reported. “Maybe they can live with it, but I can’t.”

Israeli opposition Labor Party leader Isaac Herzog, the leading challenger to Netanyahu in the March 17 elections, opposed the prime minister’s visit to Washington. “You will cause strategic damage to Israel’s standing and to the relationship with the United States,” he said, the New York Times reported Feb. 26.

Netanyahu and his supporters in Israel say Obama is meddling in Israeli politics in an effort to defeat him. Polls in Israel show that Herzog’s Zionist Union bloc with Tzipi Livni is running neck and neck against Netanyahu’s Likud.

Bills authored by Republicans and some Democrats are circulating in Congress demanding Obama allow Congress to vote on any nuclear pact with Iran and calling for a new round of sanctions if talks fail.

The president has said he will veto any new sanctions and views an agreement with Iran as a matter of “executive prerogative.”  
 
 
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