Obama: echoes of Iraq war mindset in Iran nuke deal critics

President Barack Obama denounced "chest-beating" critics and told a veterans group July 21 that those who oppose the diplomatic agreement to rein in Iran's nuclear program are some of the same people who were quick to want to go to war in Iraq and thought military action there would take only a matter of months.

"We're hearing the echoes of some of the same policies and mindsets that failed us in the past," Obama told the Veterans of Foreign Wars national convention in Pittsburgh. He argued that the Iran deal offers "a smarter, more responsible way to protect our national security."
     
Obama spoke one day after the U.N. Security Council unanimously endorsed the nuclear deal with Iran. The White House is mounting a massive outreach campaign to try to win over skeptics and avert a congressional attempt to scuttle the deal, dispatching top officials daily to television shows and Capitol Hill. Presidential press secretary Josh Earnest revealed that a major Internet-driven campaign for the Iranian agreement will soon get underway as well.
     
Obama told his audience there was "a lot of shaky information out there" about the deal, and he seemed eager to push back.
     
"The same politicians and pundits that are so quick to reject the possibility of a diplomatic solution to Iran's nuclear program are the same folks who were so quick to go to war in Iraq and said it would only take a few months," Obama said.
     
Obama's 2008 campaign for president centered largely around his opposition to the Iraq War, as he railed against the policies of President George W. Bush. By invoking the Iraq war in the context of the Iran deal, Obama offered a window into the parallels he sees in his efforts to use diplomacy with Iran to avoid...