King of the Ash

AIPAC chief Howard Kohr, who spearheaded the failed push to block the Iran Deal in Congress, visits a Maryland synagogue:

Kohr’s final appeal is for the activists to make the calls to their lawmakers not because they will win — but because they will be able to tell future generations that they did the right thing.

He praises congregants who brought their children to the event, as the kids scamper through the aisles. By making the calls to Congress, Kohl says, they can look into their children’s eyes now and for generations to come and say, “When American interests were jeopardized and when Israel’s existence was at stake, I did everything that I could to ensure that America, the greatest country on earth, stood at Israel’s side.”

There's some irony here, as if AIPAC is to be believed once this deal goes through there won't be a future generation of Jews to be told about "doing the right thing". The Israel and, perhaps, the entire western world will have dissolved in a cloud of Iranian-induced radioactive ash (thanks, Obama). By contrast, precisely because Kohl imagines we'll could be having this conversation in 20 years' time implies that the deal actually worked largely as its proponents promised.*

* Yes, yes, none of this is technically true -- not the least of which because Israel could be destroyed while American Jewry remained untouched. But in such a horrifying event, I'd hope that our main communal response wouldn't be to say "I told you so."