In speech, Obama to link Iran vote to Iraq war

WASHINGTON — uS President Barack Obama is depicting a looming congressional vote on the Iran nuclear deal as the nation’s most consequential foreign policy debate since the authorization of the Iraq war, a now unpopular decision that still reverberates through American politics.

In a bid to discredit criticism of the deal, Obama will also argue in a speech Wednesday at American University in Washington that the politicians who supported the Iraq war now oppose the diplomatic deal with Iran.

The address is part of an intense summer lobbying campaign by both supporters and opponents of the nuclear deal. Congressional lawmakers will vote next month on a resolution either approving or disapproving of the pact.

While Obama was an early opponent of the Iraq war, several of his top foreign policy advisers voted for the 2002 authorization, including Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State John Kerry, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination. They now say the war was a mistake.

The backdrop for Obama’s speech is meant to link the nuclear accord to a long tradition of American diplomacy, often conducted with unfriendly nations. He will speak at the same university where President John F. Kennedy made a famous call for Cold War diplomacy and nuclear disarmament. Obama’s address also coincides with the anniversary of the nuclear test ban treaty, the landmark 1963 agreement Kennedy and leaders from the Soviet Union and Britain finalized shortly after the president’s well-known speech.