March 29, 2024

Netanyahu’s message

Netanyahu’s message

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Photo: Reuters

Ever since John Boehner announced Benjamin Netanyahu would be addressing Congress, Obama officials have been screaming how the GOP House leader and the Israeli prime minister have spit in their faces — and vowing behind the scenes to make them pay.

Then again, maybe they’re vilifying the messenger to distract from the message.

Because Netanyahu’s main focus will be on Iran and the dangers of the nuclear deal President Obama is pursuing with Tehran.

Iran is the chief exporter of global terrorism.

It arms and finances Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza and Syria’s Bashar al-Assad. Its responsibility for the 1994 bombing of a Buenos Aires Jewish center is also at the heart of the assassination of an Argentine prosecutor investigating Iran’s role.

Netanyahu is likely to note that a deal that keeps Iran on the edge of nuclear capability will ignite an arms race among America’s longtime Arab allies: oil-rich Sunni gulf states such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which fear Tehran just as much as does ­Netanyahu.

In this, he would echo one of the president’s own former military commanders, retired Marine Gen. James Mattis who says the options will be “very bleak” if Iran comes away from any US deal with its nuclear program intact.

Apart from the president’s desperation to produce some policy triumph in the Middle East, he is no doubt thinking Iran will be an ally in the fight against the Sunni terrorists such as ISIS.

Talk about rose-colored glasses: Sen. John McCain rightly calls the idea that a deal with Iran means we’ll all be working ­together ­“delusional.”

In recent weeks alone, Iranian-backed forces have taken the capital of Yemen; Iranian-backed Hezbollah has killed two Israei soldiers; Iran’s influence in Iraq grows while America’s declines; while in Iran itself the nation is about to put a Washington Post reporter on trial.

So forget Netanyahu the messenger. Far more critical is the timely message about Iran he will deliver.

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