John Kerry

a reason to get its own case out for a possible (likely?) Iranian deal first. It may turn out that Netanyahu having made this a high octane political fight has handed the WH an incredible opportunity. Without the visit, Obama would have had to fight a back scenes effort by allies of Netanyahu and neo cons without the same ability to publicly deal with their spurious arguments. (I hope by the time this is over, Netanyahu will realize he should NEVER have made a Republican operative his ambassador)

The focus now may well be on the calm, sane voices of President Obama and Secretary Kerry to make the case vs Netanyahu. Netanyahu via his strange 2012 UN appearance with his bomb poster speaking of Iran getting a bomb in 6 months and his outrageous claims against the interim sanctions is not the serious image many have of Netanyahu. (You do not even need to throw in his Iraq warnings -- but they do add to his lack of credibility.) In the process of defending the administration's years of diplomatic effort (and that of 5 other countries), it is absolutely required to do what Kerry did in the hearing -- go after Netanyahu's credibility on Iran.

My observation of why Netanyahu has had previous success speaking in the US is that he sounds (if you ignore the words) soft spoken, articulate and not like Ted Cruz. However, this is a chance to show that for whatever reason he is irrationally against ANY diplomatic agreement here. What is interesting here is that vs Obama/Kerry, it is Netanyahu who is the hot, wild eyed opponent - and they will have set up the impossible question for him -- what happens if he wins and the agreement fails.

This is incredibly high stakes -- both for an Iranian deal and the Israeli elections. One annoying thing in the coverage is that the former is - by far - the more important, but the media is more comfortable speaking of politics. I was surprised by at least one article in a RW Israeli source (JP) that actually suggested it would be "dirty politics" if Obama announced the outlines of a deal before Netanyahu's speech or the election - completely ignoring that the March deadline was set well before Dermer/Boehner/Netanyahu orchestrated his speech. If the powers get agreement on the framework, this is a major WORLD accomplishment - not something done to make Netanyahu look ineffective.

So far, his arguments have been "you can't trust Iran" (though they complied in the interim agreement) and the agreement is "only" for a decade -- ignoring that 10 years down the road if there are problems, certainly the world can do something and that in the short term, it is not "trust", but monitoring.

The NYT has an article today that speaks of how the administration has started a proactive counteroffensive. It sounds like one focus is that Netanyahu has offered no other solution.

Just four days before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to a joint meeting of Congress, the Obama administration sought on Friday to refute the Israeli leader’s expected critique, arguing that he has failed to present a feasible alternative to American proposals for constraining Iran’s nuclear program.

In a briefing for reporters, senior administration officials contended that even an imperfect agreement that kept Iran’s nuclear efforts frozen for an extended period was preferable to a breakdown in talks that could allow the leadership in Tehran unfettered ability to produce enriched uranium and plutonium.

“The alternative to not having a deal is losing inspections,” said one senior official, who would not be quoted by name under conditions that the administration set for the briefing, “and an Iran ever closer to having the fissile material to manufacture a weapon.”

<snip>
While the United States has taken the lead in the nuclear talks with the Iranians, the negotiating partners also include France, Britain, Germany, Russia and China. European officials have suggested in recent days that an agreement is closer than the “50-50” assessment by Obama administration officials.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/28/world/middleeast/white-house-offers-rebuttal-before-netanyahus-speech-on-iran.html?_r=0

This is a really interesting article that shows that the WH is using the high road - while highlighting that Netanayhu has been in the wrong repeatedly.