How They Failed to Block the Iran Deal
The debate on the deal throughout was only ostensibly on its merits. The Republicans’ contempt for Obama—as a Democrat, as a black person, as, in the view of many of them, an illegitimate president—was clear to any close observer. For the first time in US history, the opposition party thumbed its nose at the president by inviting the head of another nation—Netanyahu—to address Congress to urge rejection of an international measure the president supported. When Secretary of State John Kerry, a former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, appeared before it to testify on the agreement, he was greeted with overt contempt by its Republican members.
.. The lead in opposing it was taken by AIPAC, which aligns itself on Israel’s security matters with the Likud party and its leader, Netanyahu. (When the more peace-minded Yitzahk Rabin was prime minister, his relationship with AIPAC was rocky.)
.. Each side had support from Israeli officials: current ones were against the deal, while former heads of intelligence and the military said that it was good for Israel’s security.