Netanyahu’s 2015 Congress speech helped Obama win support for Iran deal: Congresswoman

The speech Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave at the US Congress in early 2015 helped the Barack Obama administration to gain support for the landmark Iran nuclear deal, according to senior Democratic Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky.

Netanyahu has been boasting recently about the controversial speech, claiming it is what led US President Donald Trump to announce he would withdraw the United States from the multilateral nuclear accord with Iran.

Last week, Trump refused to certify the nuclear agreement with Iran, and warned he might ultimately terminate it, in defiance of other world powers and undermining a landmark victory of multilateral diplomacy.

Trump’s speech about the Iran deal signaled a major shift in US policy and detailed a more confrontational stance toward Tehran over its civilian nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

In an interview with Haaretz published on Tuesday, Schakowsky said Netanyahu’s speech and the political drama it created two and a half years ago, actually rallied the Democrats in Congress behind the Iran nuclear deal.

She said the Netanyahu speech also forced liberal civil society organizations to join forces and lobby members of Congress, influence the press and public opinion to support the agreement.

“It was a big mistake for Netanyahu to come to Congress. Both in terms of the issue of the deal and of offending many Democrats. But in retrospect, I think it helped us," the lawmaker said.

"People thought it would be AIPAC's summer but it was not, because there was an organized effort. People actually read and studied the deal and thought what the consequences might be,” said Schakowsky. She was referring to the summer of 2015 when the nuclear deal was saved by Democratic lawmakers in Congress.

Netanyahu delivered an anti-Iran speech at Congress on March 3, 2015 to persuade American lawmakers to put more pressure on Tehran over its nuclear program. His speech angered both the Obama administration and US lawmakers, particularly Democrats.

The Israeli prime minister, who had been invited by then US House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner, denounced the talks between Iran and the P5+1 countries – the US, Britain, France, China, Russia, and Germany.

PressTV-Bibi angered Obama, Congress by his talk

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu angered both the White House and US lawmakers by his speech at Congress on March 3, says an analyst.

Despite efforts by Netanyahu, the AIPAC and other opponents to sabotage the Iran talks, Tehran and the P5+1 group finalized the text of a nuclear agreement dubbed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in the Austrian capital Vienna on July 14, 2015.

Under the deal, which entered into force in January, 2016, Iran accepted to limit parts of its civilian nuclear program in exchange for the removal of all nuclear-related sanctions.

Schakowsky was one of several Jewish lawmakers who boycotted Netanyahu’s 2015 speech. She said Democrats are now making efforts in Congress and outside it to ensure Trump does not pull the US out of the agreement and that Congress does not reinstitute sanctions on Iran.

“We are not just going to sit around and wait. There will be a lot of opposition [to the United States leaving the agreement]. I am very proud of the role I played for the Iran deal and the majority of Jews in Congress voting for the Iran deal – not loving it, but thinking that this is the best thing we are going to get. I still think that,” she stated.

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