The Iran nuclear deal, which is so bad in so many ways explained here so many times, is a done deal.
Democrats now have enough votes in the Senate to prevent an override of an Obama veto of a resolution of disapproval, if it even gets to a vote given Democrats are close to the votes needed to filibuster.
Partial blame belongs to Republicans in the Senate for agreeing to a procedure that required passage of a resolution of disapproval by a supermajority, rather than approval by a supermajority, or even a majority. But at least Republicans opposed the deal, which means that majorities in each house of Congress are against it.
Whatever procedural mistakes Republicans made are dwarfed by the substantive embrace of the deal by most Democrats in Congress. That despite the fact that the deal is hugely unpopular overall, and is at best a split decision even among Democrats not in Congress.
It is not an exaggeration to say that loyalty to Obama was the overriding factor. Democrats in Congress were the main targets of Obama’s demagoguery — be with Obama or be for war; be with Obama or be for the monied lobbyists. The message was clear: Be with Obama or be a traitor.
So the deal will not fail. To say that it “passes” is inaccurate.
There will be calls once the votes are taken to heal. To make Israel, once again, a matter of bipartisan consensus.
To that end, sure. But not with the Democrats who voted for or supported this deal. Or who sat on the sidelines until their “No” vote was meaningless. (Credit to Chuck Schumer for casting his opposition when it mattered.)
They have burned the bridges. They must be primaried by Democrats. Or voters in the general election will do it for them.
Bipartisanship, yes. Forgetting what happened, no.
Same goes within the Jewish community. There will be calls to come together again, to repair the fissures that have emerged, to make up with those — almost entirely on the left — who not only supported but also lobbied hard for the deal. No thanks. Those fissures weren’t created by the Iran deal, they were exposed, and they shouldn’t be papered over with platitudes.
This all reminds me of when Democrats passed Obamacare.
Nancy Pelosi and congressional Democrats smugly marched to the Capitol with oversized gavel in hand, relishing their pending thin victory. Passage in the Senate was as thin as could be and only due to historical quirks such as Republican Senator Ted Stevens wrongly having been convicted months earlier on charges that later would be thrown out due to prosecutorial misconduct.
Democrats rubbed their victory in the faces of the defeated. Yet they actually did so in the faces of majority of American amid growing voter opposition to Obamacare’s passage.
It was a triumph of arrogance and disdain for the American people. The reckoning came in the 2010 mid-terms, when opponents of Obamacare turned that disrespect for the voters into a historic victory at the polls, retaking the House and eviscerating a generation of Democratic congressmen.
While Obama’s force of personality and campaign apparatus was enough to salvage the 2012 campaign, 2014 saw Republicans take back the Senate, a continued reckoning of the Obamacare legacy.
And so too, expect a victory lap with survival of the Iran deal, and the claim that this is the end of “the Israel Lobby.”
Yet the Israel Lobby is the American people, who overwhelmingly and by increasing margins support Israel, and oppose this deal.
The implicit and sometimes explicit anti-Israel messaging used as part of the campaign for the deal was an affront not so much to Israel, but to the American people.
There needs to be another reckoning. It needs to come from within the Democratic Party, or it will come from outside. Democrats can clean their house, or the voters will do it for them again in a general election.
And within the Jewish community, this is a reckoning that has been a long time coming. And it needs to happen.
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