Allah:
The first in what’s bound to be an awfully tough series targeting red-state Democrats like Jon Tester and Joe Manchin. They’re the obvious place to start for the GOP in finding 67 votes in the Senate to block Obama’s Iran deal, but it tells you a lot about Democratic solidarity on this that even Manchin, the most “mavericky” member of the caucus, has said he’s leaning“strongly” towards voting with O.
Hawks have tried to persuade them. Now it’s time to shame them. Via Iowahawk, according to one estimate, the deaths of more than 500 U.S. troops in Iraq can be directly linked to Iran.
The group, Veterans Against the Deal, was founded last month as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, and it does not disclose its donors. Its national campaign starts today, including television ads in states whose members of Congress are undecided on the Iran deal. Lawmakers will vote on it in September…
[Executive Director Michael] Pregent said his campaign will point out that U.S. soldiers who were victims of Iranian bombs aren’t inclined to ally with Iranian hardliners. The group has recruited U.S. service members who were victims of the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Beirut, when 241 U.S. troops were killed by Iranian-backed Hezbollah forces. Their efforts will also feature parents and children of service members who were killed in the war in Iraq.
“Do they fall into the category of those aligned with the hardliners in Iran,” Pregent asked, “because they oppose this deal?”
They’re not attacking the specific terms of the nuclear deal, in other words, but the basic premise of releasing $100 billion in sanctions relief to a regime that, by Obama’s own admission, will inevitably spend some of that money to promote its lethally anti-American agenda abroad. That cuts right to the heart of O’s argument over the weekend that GOPers who oppose the Iran deal on principle, because they don’t want any bargains with a country that’s already targeted Americans, are making common cause with Iranian hardliners. So is Sgt. Bartlett, I guess. Good luck to Democrats with that talking point.
They’re going to come back with two arguments against this, I’d guess. One is that the reason they made the deal in the first place was to make sure that other U.S. servicemen don’t suffer the same fate he did. Without this deal, Obama assures us, we’ll be at war with Iran soon enough, with U.S. airmen asked to risk their lives to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities and Americans at home and abroad targeted for reprisals by Iranian agents. That’d be a fine argument if the deal actually dismantled Iran’s bomb program instead of merely postponing Iran’s enrichment process for 10 years. As it is, we’ll be back in this same position 10 years from now, with the president forced to choose between war and acceptance of Iran as a nuclear state — except Iran will have more diplomatic leverage to continue its program by then, and maybe new ICBM technology to help deliver its weapons. How are there fewer Americans at risk in that scenario?