Israel and its supporters in the United States are committing about $100 million to sink the Iran nuclear agreement in the US Congress, an author and radio host in Chicago says.
“My understanding is that AIPAC [the American Israel Public Affairs Committee], Israel, and its big donors are committing $100 million to defeat this measure, to undermine it, or to just kill it altogether,” Stephen Lendman told Press TV on Friday.
“And what they want is destroying Iran. They want a war on Iran. They want Iran destroyed, they want Israel’s main regional rival eliminated,” he added.
Lendman made the remarks after US President Barack Obama called on his Democratic allies to support his nuclear agreement with Iran, saying opponents are spending millions of dollars in order to sabotage the deal and try to make another war in the Middle East.
Obama urged his supporters to stop “the same columnists and former administration officials that were responsible for us getting into the Iraq war.”
The US president said opponents are spending $20 million on television ads lobbying against the conclusion of nuclear talks reached between Iran and the P5+1 group of countries - the US, Britain, France, Russia, China, and Germany – in the Austrian capital, Vienna, on July 14.
“If this deal really works, their chance for war is greatly diminished. That’s not at all what neocons in Washington want, what Israel wants, what its lobby wants,” Lendman emphasized.
The Republican-dominated Congress is reviewing the Iran nuclear agreement and is likely to vote on it in September.
Most Republicans oppose the agreement with Iran, but they need a two-thirds vote in both chambers of Congress to override a possible presidential veto, and to reach that threshold, Republicans need Democratic support.
“Congress now has 60 days – up and down - to decide whether to accept or reject the deal. Probably there will be a vote on this in September, possibly earlier. Congress is out on summer recess now. So they will be back in a number of weeks,” Lendman said.
“So there’s an all-out Israeli, its lobby AIPAC, blitzkrieg to undermine this deal,” he stated.
“Obama spent two years trying to put it together. Whether he really wants to work out his plan is another issue altogether, but he wants something on his disturbing record to show that he accomplished something positive, even if subverted later on – which is what I greatly fear – either by him or his succeeding administration,” the analyst observed.
“So he is going all-out to enlist public support to back this agreement,” he noted.
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