As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made his case against the Iran nuclear deal to a few dozen members of Congress visiting him in Jerusalem, Netanyahu whipped out a whiteboard to illustrate his point.
In this case, he was preaching to the converted, an all-Republican group that included Georgia freshmen U.S. Reps. Barry Loudermilk, Buddy Carter and Rick Allen. But he gave them new ammunition and additional urgency as they prepare for a September showdown with the Obama administration.
Loudermilk, of Cassville, and Carter, of Pooler, in phone interviews with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Wednesday from Israel, described the meeting as a key moment of the trip.
“Certainly, Israel has made it clear that they’re going to do what they have to do to protect their homeland, and it’s not difficult to read through the lines to understand what he is saying is they’re going to have nuclear arms as well,” Carter said. “He went on to point out you can count on these other countries in this region to join in.”
Israel has not publicly acknowledged its nuclear program, but it is almost universally acknowledged to have nuclear arms already.
The congressional trip was sponsored by the American Israel Education Foundation, the charitable counterpart to the American Israel Political Action Committee – an immensely influential group that has been lobbying against the Iran deal.
The group met with Palestinian leaders in the West Bank, which Carter said shows that AIPAC was exposing the group to a range of views. Loudermilk said Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas indicated that he, too, opposes the deal, even if he did not say it directly.
Loudermilk addressed the economic benefit Iran would see from the rolling back of sanctions.
“You put more rockets in the hands of Hamas — which when you dump $150 billion in the hands of Iran, a significant amount of money is going to end up in the hands of terrorists,” he said.
President Barack Obama has said that the deal offers the best chance for the U.S. to halt Iran’s quest for a nuclear bomb for the next several years, and that it is a much better option than war. Former Democratic Georgia U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn, who works on nuclear nonproliferation, has come out in favor of the deal as well because it will make Iran’s path to a bomb more difficult.
The deal’s critics say continued economic sanctions are the best course. They have the votes to defeat the deal in September, but the question is whether they have enough votes to override Obama’s expected veto — which would then allow the deal to go into effect.
Loudermilk noted that a group of Democrats came through on a similar trip before this one, and one of them, U.S. Rep. Kathleen Rice, D-N.Y., announced her opposition. Loudermilk said he would press for new, stronger sanctions.
“They haven’t changed their ideology at all. I forget which one of the people I was talking to compared Iran to Adolf Hitler: Hitler was looking for a master race, and Iran is looking for a master faith,” he said. “Nothing will stand in their way of achieving what they want to do. When you put this type of weaponry in the hands of a madman, it’s going to be used against you.”
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