By Gil Elan

As more information about the supposed upcoming “Bad Deal” between the P5+1 countries and Iran over the radical Islamic State’s nuclear weapons program, due to be drafted by March 24 and finalized in June, leaks … no … gushes out, the importance of Speaker John Boehner’s invitation to Bibi to address Congress, and Bibi’s acceptance, becomes more imperative. Here’s why:
1. Disagreeing strongly with both the U.S. negotiating tactics at the table (concede more and more without any budge from the Iranians), and a constantly retreating goal line (from “zero nuclear weapons capability” to accepting a nuclear weaponized Iran that can, in what is probably an unrealistic fantasy of someone advising the president, be somehow “contained”), Germany, France, the UK, China and Russia have quietly taken a back seat in the talks.
2. All “negotiations” (i.e., capitulation to Iran’s demands) in recent weeks have been conducted between Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.
3. A recent editorial in the Wall Street Journal notes that “Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Jan. 29: ‘Nuclear talks with Iran began as an international effort, buttressed by six UN resolutions, to deny Iran the capability to develop a military nuclear option. They are now in essentially bilateral negotiation over the scope of that capability through an agreement that sets a hypothetical limit of one year on an assumed breakout. The impact of this approach will be to move from preventing proliferation to managing it.’”
4. And while the White House seems certain that a regime of inspections and threats of sanctions or military action are more than enough to “manage” or “contain” a nuclear armed, radical and unpredictable Islamist Shiite regime, whose leaders call day in and day out for the destruction of Israel and eventually the “Great Satan” America, after dominating all regional Sunni regimes, everybody in the neighborhood knows that “this American dog won’t hunt.”
5. The WSJ editorial concludes: “Our own view is that Mr. Obama is so bent on an Iran deal that he will make almost any concession to get one. In any case Mr. Kissinger’s concerns underscore the need for Congressional scrutiny and a vote on any agreement with Iran.”
And this is EXACTLY why Bibi must be allowed to present the facts about the “bad deal,” together with updated Israeli intelligence reports on the Iranian program to Congress, before the March 24 meeting between Kerry and Zarif.
Congress has the duty to know and the American public has a right to know.
A power-hungry, fanatically Jihadist, expansionist-driven and longtime terrorist-supporting Shiite theocracy with nukes is a threat not only to Israel and Saudi Arabia, but to every man, woman and child in the world that will refuse to bow to their dictates.
There will be plenty of time for egos, insults, protocols, legacies, election campaigns and the rest of the everyday meaningless minutiae later. But not now!
Now is the time to let Bibi Netanyahu present Israel’s existential message to Congress.
Agree or disagree, that’s my opinion.
Lt. Col. (IDF res) Gil Elan is President and CEO of the Southwest Jewish Congress, and a Middle East analyst. Email: gil@swjc.org. Upcoming briefings and SWJC events are listed at: www.swjc.org. DISCLAIMER: Opinions are the writer’s, and do not represent SWJC directors, officers or members.