Returning to the theme that launched his first White House bid, President Barack Obama pitched his Iran nuclear deal Wednesday by urging Congress not to repeat its mistake of approving the 2003 Iraq War. 
 
 “Congressional rejection of this deal leaves any U.S. administration that is absolutely committed to preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon with one option — another war in the Middle East,” Obama warned. 
 
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 In tones that alternated between impassioned, incredulous and mocking of the Iran deal’s critics, Obama offered his strongest — and most political — argument yet for the agreement struck on July 14. Departing from the substance of the deal, Obama spent several minutes focusing on the track record of its opponents. 
 
 “The same people who argued for the war in Iraq are now making the case against the Iran deal,” Obama told an audience at American University. He said those critics exaggerate threats, obscure the true costs of war, and prefer military action over diplomacy. 
 
 Obama’s target audience: the few dozen undecided House and Senate Democrats who control the fate of the deal in Congress. A day before the first Republican presidential debate, Obama was also speaking to an American public with mixed views on Iran, but which overwhelmingly thinks the Iraq War was a mistake. 
 
 More than at anytime in his presidency, Obama reverted to arguments he made repeatedly early in his first presidential bid. Some former aides said the speech brought back memories of Obama’s insurgent primary campaign in Iowa in late 2007. 
 
 “When I ran for President eight years ago as a candidate who had opposed the decision to go to war in Iraq, I said that America didn’t just have to end that war — we had to end the mindset that got us there in the first place,” Obama said. 
 
 Obama argued that opponents of the deal, who insist that it is too weak, are stuck in the mindset of Washington “conventional wisdom” and a cavalier attitude toward the unpredictable consequences of war. He urged members of Congress, who are expected to vote on the deal in September, to “worry less about being labeled weak [and] worry more about getting it right.” 
 
 Unmentioned in Obama’s speech was Hillary Clinton’s 2002 vote to authorize force in Iraq, which likely allowed Obama to derail her path to the 2008 Democratic nomination. Nor did he mention identical votes by two other members of his administration who were then in the Senate: Secretary of State John Kerry and Vice President Joe Biden. Several other influential Democrats who backed the war remain in Congress, including New York Sen. Chuck Schumer and House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer. 
 
 Obama did not single out any critics, though his voice rose in frustration when he described opposition to the Iran deal “in many cases offered by the same people who seem to have a compunction with being repeatedly wrong, led to a war that did more to strengthen Iran and more to isolate the United States than anything we have done in the decade since.” 
 
 The argument drew a quick and angry rebuke from two prominent Iraq War backers who are also fierce critics of the pact. Obama’s address was “another example of his reliance on endless strawmen to divert attention from his failed policies,” said Republican Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham in a joint statement. 
 
 Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker also blasted the speech to POLITICO, calling it “partisan” and misleading. 
 
 The idea that war is the only alternative to the deal is a “straw man,” Corker said. “Our military officials that have sat with the administration all the way through this have said: Never ever has there been any discussion about the fact if this deal falls apart there will be military action. Never.” 
 
 In a statement, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce noted that, in Senate testimony last week, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey said the U.S. military had “a range of options” for confronting Iran short of war. 
 
 Corker suggested that Obama’s emphasis on the undesirability of bombing Iran — which he said would set back its program only a few years with other dangerous consequences — has undermined America’s leverage. 
 
 “This president is not going to carry out military action against Iran. Iran knows that,” Corker said. 
 
 Obama took care to note that he has ordered military action in seven countries and sent tens of thousands of U.S. troops into battle, nearly all of them in Afghanistan during his first term. 
 
 Obama also infuriated some Republicans by arguing that they had made “common cause” with Iranian hard-liners opposed to the deal who chant “Death to America” at public rallies. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell issued a statement calling the comment “bizarre” and “offensive,” and said it “goes way over the line of civil discourse.” 
 
 The assault on critics of the Iran deal book-ended a speech that mainly reiterated Obama’s previous arguments on behalf of the agreement, under which Iran will accept limits on its nuclear program for 10 to 15 years, and in some areas longer, in return for an end to economic sanctions. 
 
 Obama repeated his argument that the deal represented the best effort of diplomacy and that a stronger alternative is not plausible. 
 
 “Those who say we can just walk away from this deal and maintain sanctions are selling a fantasy,” Obama argued, one of several instances where he belittled his critics’ arguments. White House officials say Obama has been frustrated with what he considers unserious critiques of the nuclear pact from Republicans. 
 
 Elsewhere in the speech, for instance, Obama mocked “lobbyists and pundits [who] were suddenly transformed into armchair nuclear scientists,” second-guessing credentialed experts like Energy Secretary Earnest Moniz. 
 
 ”I’ve had to make a lot of tough calls as president. But whether this deal is good for American security is not a tough call. It’s not even close,” Obama said. 
 
 If the deal fails, he argued, “the alternatives to a military option will have been exhausted,” and America will be headed toward “another war in the Middle East” with what he called unpredictable consequences. 
 
 “If we’ve learned anything from the last decade, it’s that wars in general — and wars in the Middle East in particular — are anything but simple,” Obama said. 
 
 Congress can vote to disapprove the deal and prevent Obama from suspending tough U.S. sanctions on Iran, which could bring down the entire agreement. Obama would veto such a measure, and Congress would need a two-thirds vote in each chamber to override it. 
 
 Despite a fierce lobbying campaign by opponents of the deal and the government of Israel, the agreement seems likely to survive. But the relentlessness of the administration’s sales pitch — including Obama’s powerful language Wednesday — indicates that the White House is not taking that outcome for granted. 
 
 Obama opened his address by recalling a historic speech 52 years earlier at the same location by President John F. Kennedy, who argued for negotiating with the Soviet Union in the name of world peace. “Strength, in his view, included powerful armed forces and a willingness to stand up for our values around the world,” Obama said. “But he rejected the prevailing attitude among some foreign policy circles that equated security with a perpetual war footing.” 
 
 The speech opened on a lighter note when Obama, who arrived nearly 40 minutes late, explained the reason for his tardiness: “I apologize for the slight delay,” he said with a grin. “Even presidents have problems with toner.” 
 
 Burgess Everett contributed to this report. ||||| President Obama urged support for the Iran nuclear deal while speaking at American University in Washington. He outlined the deal and denounced critics' claims that the deal would open a pathway for Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon. VPC 
 
 President Obama listens as United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon speaks during their meeting in the Oval Office at the White House Tuesday. (Photo: Susan Walsh, AP) 
 
 WASHINGTON — President Obama will deliver a crucial speech on the Iran nuclear agreement Wednesday, arguing that the congressional vote that could block the deal is "the most consequential foreign policy debate since the decision to go to war in Iraq," the White House said. 
 
 White House aides said Obama would "point out that the same people who supported war in Iraq are opposing diplomacy with Iran, and that it would be an historic mistake to squander this opportunity" to contain Iran's nuclear program. 
 
 The framing of that message appears to be a direct appeal to congressional Democrats; while some opposed the Iraq War, others came to regret their votes to authorize it. Obama will need their votes to get the one-thirds vote necessary to sustain a veto. 
 
 Since the Iran deal isn't a treaty, it doesn't need congressional approval, but can be rejected with a two-thirds vote of both chambers. On Tuesday, the House Foreign Affairs Committee formally introduced a resolution to do just that, and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy promised a September vote once the House returns from its summer recess. 
 
 The deal, two years in the making, would relax sanctions against Iran in exchange for a promise not to develop nuclear weapons and inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Critics, including every major Republican presidential candidate, say Iran cannot be trusted and that the economic benefits of the deal will only strengthen Iran's ability to threaten Israel and foment extremism throughout the Middle East. 
 
 Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell urged Obama to "avoid tired, obviously untrue talking points about this being some choice between a bad deal and war." 
 
 "Of course it isn't," McConnell said Wednesday. "He knows it isn't. He himself has said that 'a bad deal is worse than no deal.'" 
 
 Obama made a special appeal to the Jewish community Tuesday, meeting at the White House with about two-dozen leaders of Jewish groups that span the religious and ideological spectrum, including the conservative American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the liberal J Street, and leaders of reform and orthodox congregations. 
 
 The president is trying to counter a determined lobbying campaign by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who continued his months-long effort to scuttle the deal by appealing to American Jews in a webcast Tuesday. "I don’t oppose this deal because I want war,” he told them. "I oppose this deal because I want to prevent war.” 
 
 Wednesday's speech, at American University in Washington, is already drawing historical parallels. It's the same place President Kennedy gave his 1963 speech proposing a nuclear test ban treaty with the Soviet Union at the apex of the Cold War. 
 
 The White House seemed to be encouraging those comparisons — to a point. White House press secretary Josh Earnest said both Kennedy and Obama "entered into a diplomatic agreement with an adversary of the United States that did succeed in advancing the national security interests of the United States." 
 
 But unlike Kennedy, Earnest said, Obama did not have to make any concessions about its own defense. "There’s no impact from this nuclear agreement on the United States and either our nuclear programs or our military programs," Earnest said Tuesday. 
 
 Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1SML4mR ||||| President Obama lashed out at critics of the Iran nuclear deal on Wednesday, saying many of those who backed the U.S. invasion of Iraq now want to reject the Iran accord and put the Middle East on the path toward another war. 
 
 Obama also said that if Congress rejects the deal, it will undermine America’s standing in global diplomacy, leaving the United States isolated and putting Israel in even greater peril. 
 
 While calling the nuclear accord with Iran “the strongest nonproliferation agreement ever negotiated,” Obama also seemed to turn the vote on the deal into a referendum on the U.S. invasion of Iraq a dozen years ago, a decision he portrayed as the product of a “mind-set characterized by a preference for military action over diplomacy.” 
 
 Obama said that when he first ran for president, he believed “that America didn’t just have to end that war. We had to end the mind-set that got us there in the first place.” He added that “now, more than ever, we need clear thinking in our foreign policy.” 
 
 It was the president’s sharpest attack yet on opponents of the Iran nuclear deal, which he sees as a defining achievement amid an often rocky foreign policy record. 
 
 President Obama hammered critics of the nuclear deal negotiated with Iran, saying Republicans in the Congress who oppose it are making “common cause” with Iranian hard-liners. (AP) 
 
 [How the Obama White House runs foreign policy] 
 
 In a two-hour White House meeting Tuesday night with Jewish American groups, Obama seemed particularly bothered by a multimillion-dollar ad campaign aimed at stopping the deal. On Wednesday afternoon, the president used his Twitter account to say: “There’s no such thing as a ‘better deal.’ Walking away risks war.” 
 
 As he nears the end of his tenure, Obama has been arguing forcefully that diplomacy can yield benefits, even as his administration continues to use targeted strikes by drones and struggles to deal with civil war in Syria, the rise of the Islamic State and confrontation with Russia over Ukraine. 
 
 “I have not shied away from using force when necessary,” Obama said, noting he had authorized military actions in seven countries. “. . . I’ve had to make a lot of tough calls as president, but whether or not this deal is good for American security is not one of those calls. It’s not even close.” 
 
 Obama spoke from American University, the same venue used by President John F. Kennedy to promote efforts to reach a landmark nuclear test-ban treaty with Moscow at the height of the Cold War. Obama invoked that 1963 speech, saying Kennedy “rejected the prevailing attitude among some foreign policy circles that equated security with a perpetual war footing.” 
 
 Instead, Obama said, Kennedy sought “a practical and attainable peace, a peace based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions, on a series of concrete actions and effective agreements.” 
 
 But many observers felt that Obama’s speech was more caustic and partisan than Kennedy’s. “Walk away from this agreement and you will get a better deal — for Iran,” he said to critics. 
 
 Here are key moments from President Obama's speech at American University on Aug. 5, addressing the international deal on Iran's nuclear program that Congress is considering. (AP) 
 
 At one point, Obama brushed aside comments by Iranian hard-liners who he said do not reflect what all Iranians believe and are the “most comfortable with the status quo.” The president added: “It’s those hard-liners chanting ‘Death to America’ who have been most opposed to the deal. They’re making common cause with the Republican caucus.” 
 
 Later, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) called on Obama “to retract his bizarre and preposterous comments” and said that Democrats who have already stated their opposition would be “insulted” by them. 
 
 Obama did not shy away from engaging foes of the Iran deal and linking them to the decision to invade Iraq. 
 
 “The single greatest beneficiary in the region of that war was the Islamic Republic of Iran, which saw its strategic position strengthened by the removal of its long-standing enemy, Saddam Hussein,” Obama added. He also noted that when President George W. Bush took office, Iran did not possess any centrifuges, the machines needed to produce nuclear bomb material, while when Obama took office Iran already had installed several thousand. 
 
 Even some supporters of the nuclear deal were put off by Obama’s argument. Many critics of the agreement were proponents of war in Iraq, but that does not make them warmongers, said Robert Einhorn, an arms-control and nonproliferation analyst with the Brookings Institution. 
 
 “I think it will offend more than convert,” said Aaron David Miller, a vice president at the Wilson Center and a former Middle East negotiator at the State Department. Miller supports the agreement but said Obama’s speech “paints those who are not reckless critics of this agreement with a large brush.” 
 
 Others who have met directly with Obama said they were impressed by the resolve with which he is making his case. They argue that the president has no choice but to fight against fierce criticism from Republican rivals and some Jewish groups opposed to the deal. 
 
 Obama has been irked by ad campaigns against the deal, including one comparing him to Neville Chamberlain, the British prime minister leading up to World War II, who has been widely blamed with not standing up to Adolf Hitler. 
 
 Alexandra Stanton, a board member at J Street, a group that supports the deal, said Obama “has a right to combat what he thinks are campaigns against him laden with non-facts and offensive statements. He has a right to call that out, a right to say he’s concerned about it and that he finds it objectionable.” 
 
 Obama appears to have made inroads with some Senate Democrats. On Wednesday, Sens. Chris Murphy (Conn.) and Angus King (Maine), an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, announced their support. On Tuesday, Sens. Barbara Boxer (Calif.), Timothy M. Kaine (Va.) and Bill Nelson (Fla.) backed the plan. 
 
 But the president has been less successful in wooing opponents among influential Jewish American groups. 
 
 “He feels the arguments that have been deployed against the deal are inaccurate and it’s his job to set the record straight,” said Jason Isaacson, who is the director of government and international affairs at the American Jewish Committee and attended the meeting with Obama. 
 
 Although Isaacson called Obama “a forceful salesman,” the American Jewish Committee announced Wednesday that it would oppose the nuclear deal. 
 
 Republicans also criticized how Obama has framed the debate. 
 
 “Does anybody in America believe that if we turn down this deal, this president is going to engage in war with Iran?” asked Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.). “That’s one of those straw men that demeans the debate.” 
 
 The heart of Obama’s address sought to hammer home the administration’s views that the alternative to the deal is conflict. 
 
 “I say this not to be provocative,” Obama said. “I am stating a fact. . . . The choice we face is ultimately between diplomacy and some form of war, maybe not tomorrow, maybe not three months from now, but soon.” 
 
 [Both sides court every vote in Congress] 
 
 Obama and other top administration officials, including Secretary of State John F. Kerry, have framed the Iran deal as a last chance to roll back Iran’s nuclear ambitions and, in particular, the scope of its ability to enrich uranium. In exchange, international sanctions on Iran would be eased. 
 
 Speaking directly to lawmakers opposing the deal, Obama said rejection would cost more than missing a chance to curb Iran’s nuclear program. 
 
 “We will have lost something more precious,” he said, “America’s credibility as a leader of diplomacy, America’s credibility as an anchor of the international system.” 
 
 Obama emphasized that every nation that has weighed in on the deal has backed it — except Israel, which fears for its own security and whose prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has been among the most vocal critics. 
 
 “I do not doubt his sincerity, but I believe he is wrong,” Obama said. 
 
 The West and its allies fear that Iran’s nuclear fuel facilities could one day be expanded to make weapons-grade material. Iran insists it does not seek nuclear arms but demands that it retain the capacity to make its own fuel for peaceful reactors. 
 
 Under the deal reached last month, U.N. inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency would have “unprecedented” access to Iranian nuclear sites, Kerry has told lawmakers. But some critics have questioned provisions that require advance notice — and possible negotiations with Iran — to inspect other areas of possible nuclear-related activity. The procedure could delay inspectors by up to 24 days. 
 
 Obama retorted that once an area of suspicion is identified, it would be watched “continuously” until inspectors can get to it and that they would get in even if Iran objects. 
 
 Obama also addressed complaints that lifting economic pressures on Iran could end up funding Iran’s military and its proxies in the region, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. 
 
 “If we are serious about confronting Iran’s destabilizing activities, it is hard to imagine a worse approach than blocking this deal,” he said. “Instead, we need to check the behavior that we are concerned about directly, by helping our allies in the region strengthen their own capabilities.” 
 
 The Iran pact faces widespread opposition in Congress — even among some Democrats — before the Sept. 17 deadline to vote. If Congress votes for a bill rejecting the deal, Obama has promised to veto it, setting up the key showdown over whether opponents could muster enough votes to secure an override. 
 
 “Shut out the noise,” he urged lawmakers. “Consider the stakes.” 
 
 Brian Murphy, Carol Morello, Karoun Demirjian and Mike DeBonis contributed to this report. ||||| Americans have a favorable early impression of the Obama administration’s nuclear deal with Iran and feel strong skepticism toward the prospect of military action against the Islamic state, according to private Democratic polling shared with POLITICO. 
 
 In a survey taken for the liberal group Americans United for Change and conducted by the firm Hart Research, a 34-percent plurality of respondents who had heard at least “a little” about the deal said they favor the White House arrangement with Iran. A total of 22 percent said they oppose the deal and 41 percent said they had no opinion or didn’t know enough to answer. 
 
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 After hearing a clinically worded description of the deal — stating that it requires Iran to “freeze its nuclear development program” and admit international inspectors, while reducing some U.S. economic sanctions and continuing negotiations for a six-month period – a full 63 percent of respondents favored the deal. 
 
 The survey, which tested 800 voters from Nov. 26 to Dec. 1 — but did not include calls on Thanksgiving and the day after — may bolster the case President Barack Obama and his allies will make to Congress, as they ask the legislature to hold off on placing new sanctions on Iran as the administration seeks to make the Iran deal work. 
 
 There are also indications that the argument over Iran is far from over: While many voters are “somewhat” inclined to back the deal or find Obama’s arguments “fairly convincing,” there is not yet a majority solidly set behind the administration’s position. 
 
 Democratic pollster Geoff Garin, who conducted the survey, said the straightforward takeaway is that voters “clearly want to give negotiations a chance to work if there is a possibility negotiations can prevent Iran from acquiring a weapon without a military strike.” 
 
 “Americans do not want to get involved in another war in the Middle East,” Garin said. “The public is reassured by the fact that most sanctions remain in place and Iran has agreed to intrusive inspections, and Americans understand tougher sanctions can be imposed if and when negotiations for a permanent resolution do not succeed.” 
 
 Offered a choice between two congressional approaches to the Iran deal, 68 percent of voters said they would prefer to see Congress “closely monitor” the implementation without taking “any action that would block the agreement.” Twenty-one percent of voters said Congress should pass new Iran sanctions “even if doing so would break the agreement … or might jeopardize the negotiations.” 
 
 In a sign of the country’s continuing war weariness, only 27 percent of respondents said they would take a favorable view of a lawmaker who backed “military action against Iran to destroy its nuclear development program.” Fifty-two percent said they would take a somewhat unfavorable or strongly unfavorable view of such a position. 
 
 And two thirds of respondents said they would prefer a member of Congress who “wants to give the new agreement and further negotiations a chance,” as opposed to 25 percent who’d rather support a lawmaker who wants to hand down new sanctions at the risk of undermining negotiations. 
 
 That divide isn’t merely a partisan one: Obama’s Iran deal has drawn flak from Democrats such as New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, as well as an array of leading Republicans, who have voiced concern that Iran is merely playing for time with the deal and has no real intention of abandoning its quest of atomic weapons. 
 
 Garin maintained: “The clear majority of voters do not want Congress to impose more sanctions at this point if doing so might jeopardize the agreement and ongoing negotiations.” 
 
 AUC president Brad Woodhouse said the group would be briefing congressional Democrats and “other interested parties” on the Iran poll in the coming days. 
 
 Update: This story has been updated to clarify that the poll did not test voters on Thursday and Friday of the Thanksgiving holiday.
– President Obama today began his campaign to convince Congress to back his Iran nuclear deal with a major speech in which he characterized the upcoming vote as one about war or peace. If the deal falls through, opponents can expect a likely outcome, he said at American University: “Another war in the Middle East.” Obama added that “I am not saying this to be provocative,” reports the Washington Post. “I am stating a fact ... the choice we have is some kind of war, maybe not tomorrow, maybe not in three months, but soon.” In the speech, Obama also drew a parallel with the vote to authorize the Iraq war. “Many of the same people who made the case for war with Iraq” oppose the Iran deal, he said. They need to “worry less about being labeled weak [and] worry more about getting it right," because that war "did more to strengthen Iran and more to isolate the United States than anything we have done in the decade since," reports Politico. The Iraq message seems to be aimed at Democrats who voted in favor of the war and now regret it, because Obama will need their votes to sustain any veto, reports USA Today. The speech kicks off "a campaign of private entreaties and public advocacy over the next several weeks" to win approval of the deal, notes the New York Times.