Israel’s detractors and antisemites are once again hysterically claiming that the United States is heading for war with Iran. This is the same false flag operation they ran to help convince the world that if a nuclear agreement was not signed with Iran — regardless of its gaping loopholes and failure to address Iran’s destabilization efforts in the region and sponsorship of terror — war was inevitable.

And who did they say was pushing the United States to go to war rather than make a deal to avoid it?

The Jews.

The ideas of Jews as warmongers was popularized during the second Iraq war by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, who blamed Israel and the Jews for the decision to attack the country. Those professors abandoned all pretense of scholarship to blame the “Israel lobby,” a euphemism for Jews, for the policy towards Iraq made by non-Jews George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Colin Powell.

We heard the same accusations throughout the debate on the Iran deal. But the only country that publicly called for war against Iran was Saudi Arabia. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeatedly said the alternative to a bad deal was not war, but a better deal. Moreover, by taking what he claimed was the only alternative to talks off the table, Obama weakened his bargaining position. He was then out-negotiated by the Iranians who, recognizing his desperation for a deal, forced Obama to cave in on several key demands.

Now that President Trump has ratcheted up pressure against the Iranians and torn up the Obamists’ precious nuclear deal, Israel is again being accused of beating war drums. Former Obama adviser Ben Rhodes, who helped devise some of his boss’ most disastrous foreign policies, claimed Netanyahu was pushing the United States to confront Iran. Another fan of the nuclear agreement, the Brookings Institute’s Bruce Riedel, wrote a piece headlined, “Don’t let Israel and Saudi Arabia drag the U.S. into another war.” Riedel now speaks derisively of prophets promising a new Middle East when that was exactly what we were told the deal he supported would accomplish.

Meanwhile, the Iranians and their US apologists, led by the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), cast aspersions on Netanyahu in the hope that Americans will blame the Jews for trying to get us into a war.

Equally unsurprising, the antisemitic Mondoweiss website ran a headline that claimed, “Israel wants the Trump administration to attack Iran, but US mainstream media ignores Netanyahu’s instigating.” Really? Then explain NBC’s headline: “From Bolton to Bibi, Trump faces calls for confronting Iran.”

Amazingly, The New York Times got it right for once with its headline, “Israel Presses the Case Against Iran, but Not for War.”

No one would contemplate war with Iran if not for the failure of the Obama administration to address the overall Iranian threat, a problem unrelated to Jews or Israel. The flaws in the agreement were no secret, which is why it would have been rejected by Congress if it had been presented as a treaty — as it should have been.

Let’s review what supporters claimed the nuclear deal would accomplish:

• Ending Iranian hostility toward the United States.

Iran remained belligerent towards the United States even before Trump took office.

• Changing Iranian behavior for the better.

Iran has grown more aggressive in seeking to destabilize Iraq and the region by sending troops and funding proxies to make war in Syria and Yemen; sponsoring global terrorism; threatening Israel with genocide; building bases in Syria to get closer to Israel; and financing Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Hezbollah to fight Israel.

• Cutting off all routes to a nuclear bomb.

Even Obama admitted Iran would be only a year away from a nuclear breakout with his deal. Rather than insist Iran destroy all its centrifuges, the negotiators permitted them to keep thousands, and to continue their research on more advanced ones, allowing the Iranians to increase their level of uranium enrichment, something we were told would be impossible thanks to the deal. Furthermore, many of the provisions will expire within a few years and allow Iran unfettered opportunities to pursue a bomb, which they had been planning, as we learned from Israel’s discovery of the trove of information secretly stored for reconstituting the nuclear program.

• Ensuring Iranian compliance.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has not fulfilled its duty to document Iran’s past nuclear work; has failed to inspect any military facilities (where one would expect any nuclear research to be conducted); was unaware of the nuclear archive; cannot determine if Iran’s nuclear program is devoted solely for peaceful purposes; and does not know if Iran is engaged in undeclared nuclear activities. In addition, German intelligence agencies have disclosed that Iran never stopped seeking components for its nuclear program.

It is the catastrophic consequences of the nuclear deal, and the failure to address the range of threats posed by Iran, which increased the probability of war with Iran, not pulling out of the nuclear deal. American Jews and Israelis know better than anyone the cost and consequences of war. They are the last ones to push for a military confrontation with Iran. It is the threat that Iran poses to American interests that may provoke the use of force, not the conspiratorial actions of the Jews.

Mitchell Bard is Executive Director of AICE and Jewish Virtual Library.

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