Reverse Wedging

When the nuclear deal with Iran was first announced, a number of right-wing media sources gleefully speculated that it would hurt Hillary Clinton — for example —

Republicans want to yoke Mrs. Clinton to the Iran deal, betting that voters—particularly those in the normally Democratic Jewish community—will see the accord as a capitulation that in the end will lead to Iran getting nuclear weapons. Exit polls show that Mr. Obama won 69% of the Jewish vote in 2012, which was 10 percentage points less than Al Gore’s share in 2000, according to the Pew Research Center.

WSJ has been seeing “cracks” in the Jewish-Democratic alliance for months. Whether there are any cracks other than in WSJ’s head I cannot say. But even before the agreement was announced, polls showed that American Jews were more likely than other Americans to want an agreement with Iran. I suspect American Jews on the whole are better informed about Iran than other Americans and have a few clues about what’s at stake.

I haven’t seen any post-agreement polls that call out Jewish opinion specifically. Jewish-American organizations are lining up on both sides of the issue, along expected lines, but whether that will change the minds of Jewish-American voters remains to be seen.

An ABC News / Washington Post poll taken last week shows the American public supporting the agreement, 56 percent to 37 percent. A large part of the people supporting the agreement are skeptical it will work, but want to give it a try, anyway. For the record, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley have all expressed support for the deal.

However, I wrote a few days ago, Republican politicians are stumbling all over themselves competing for Biggest Trash Talker of the Iran Deal. This week’s award for Most Reckless Trash Talker possibly goes to Scott Walker, who not only has promised to end the deal on his first day in office, but said that he may have to take military action on his first day in office. Greg Sargent writes,

A dispute has erupted between Scott Walker and Jeb Bush over how to handle the task of undoing Obama’s Iran deal as president, with Bush hinting that Walker is approaching the issue with a lack of maturity, and Walker suggesting that Bush is not zealous enough about confronting the enemy.

Walker is also saying that it’s “very possible” the next president will have to take military action on Day One of his presidency — though it’s unclear whether he means against Iran in particular, or more generally.

The argument says a lot about the two candidates’ differing calculations with regard to the level of nuance GOP primary voters are prepared to entertain about the Iran deal, and more broadly, about foreign policy in general.

Foreign policy experts (the non-Zionist ones anyway) are fairly unanimous that the deal could prevent war and a nuclear-armed Iran, whereas no deal would likely either lead to war or a nuclear-armed Iran. And I really don’t think the American people on the whole are in the mood for starting more wars or electing some guy who thinks he may have to declare war as soon as he takes his hand off the Bible on inauguration day.

Barring unforeseeable developments, I don’t see the deal hurting Dems, including HRC. It could easily hurt Republicans, though.

8 thoughts on “Reverse Wedging

  1. While getting my car serviced, I saw an anti-deal commercial. I’d love a counter commercial to show up asking the question; “When you ask your congress-critter to vote down this treaty, will you enlist your (grand) children at the same time?”

    I was in Desert Storm/Desert Shield, a couple of things afterward, and then finished my career with Operation Iraqi Liberation. I’d rather have diplomats hammer out a treaty, and sweat over the details, rather than have the military ‘flexing our muscle’ and have personnel sweating (and dying) over there. Until and unless the political class is willing to be the ‘boots on the ground’ I don’t see any reason to use military action. War is the failure of diplomacy, not the default setting.

  2. Expect more of this from Scooter, he is completely not ready for prime time. The national media has noticed that he is ‘always on message’, and they see that as a good thing. Well, he’s always ‘on message’ because he can’t think of anything else to say. He has memorized his lines and that’s all he has. When he’s tried to go off script, well, there’s several examples of what happens. “Tell me what you think about openly gay Scout leaders, Scott”, “Oh, you think they’re pedophiles?” Interesting. “What about the Iran deal?”, “You think you may send in troops on your first day of your presidency?” Interesting. I’ve been watching Walker for over a decade now and believe me when I say that he is not fit to be the proverbial dog catcher, much less our country.

  3. The only thing the GOP knows anymore, is attack politics, and attacking with our military – it doesn’t matter which nation.

    The base craves war, because most of them are too old to have to fight.

    They want to be armchair generals, and Keyboard Kommando’s.

    I can’t top what Marcus wrote, so I’ll just quit before I make a fool of myself – something I should be used to, by now…

  4. Ms. Emily Litella of Little Silver, New Jersey asks: “What’s this I hear about a ‘reverse wedgie’? Did President Obama stuff Prime Minister Netanyahu’s gabardine trousers into the waistband of his boxers? No? Well, what is Bibi so upset about? Someone takes his war toys away and he is just lost, poor thing. And why on earth is Governor Walker promising to perform the ‘dreaded rear admiral’ on the entire nation of Iran? Couldn’t we just send them episodes of the Kardashians if we want to destroy their civilization? Scott Walker, you are a mean, mean bully. And Mister Prime Minister, nobody likes a crybaby!”

    Ms. Litella is a bit hard of hearing, bless her heart.

  5. WSJ has been seeing “cracks” in the Jewish-Democratic alliance for months.

    Decades.

  6. Hard to assess the “cracks” for me. The big dominos in my neighborhood are probably Schumer and Nadler and they’re not talking AFAIK. Nita Lowey as well. Franken sounds like he’s on board. Grayson, I sent him $25. I hope it was enough. Wasserman-shultz is probably begging leadership for a “No” pass. Since all repubs are voting no, few if any Jewish Dem reps will get to vote a fake “No” for the folks back home. It’s all hands on deck for this one.

    But Shumer is prime mover on this deal.
    If he breaks for Obama, Brooklyn will be Wedge-O-Rama.
    He’ll can never show his face on Ocean Parkway again. Nadler too.

  7. I think one of the problems conservatives have right now is that they live and listen in their own little info-bubble, fed primarily by Faux News, so they hear and believe and act according to a lot of unreal nonsense.

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