Bibi's Lost Wager

Now that the President has over 34 votes in the Senate to override anticipated attempts by Republicans to scuttle his Iran nuclear deal, he can take a deserved victory lap after surviving a spring and summer of relentless, dishonest ads against the deal.  That's not the case with right-wing Likudnik Israeli Prime Minister Bibi "Bomb Bomb" Netanyahu, who put his prestige and influence on the line by aggressively and inappropriately interfering in American politics, and lost.

In a hard-hitting article in The American Prospect, Israeli journalist and author Gershom Gorenberg dissects Bibi Bomb Bomb's strategic and political miscalculations:

"Netanyahu's preference has been a military strike, but even his close circle of political partners balked at that, according to Ehud Barak, who spent several years as Netanyahu's defense minister. It's not rational to prefer an offensive that might slow the Iranian arms program for two or three years and reject an agreement because, in your view, it will 'only' delay the program 10 or 15 years. Nor is it rational to be the leader of Israel, a country known to possess a serious nuclear arsenal, yet compare yourself to the Jews who faced Nazi Germany."

Aside from the irrationality of trashing a negotiated international settlement that would put Iran at least 10 years away from a nuclear arms program, he's done serious damage to Israel's status in the world and in the U.S. by appearing in favor of preemptive military action against Iran.  He's also on the wrong side of Jewish Americans, who oppose his overt siding with the Republican Party:

"Like many Jewish Republicans, [Netanyahu] expects American Jews to place Israel at the top of their voting priorities, to agree with his policies, and to wake up at last to the need to vote Republican. After all, that's how the American Jews he knows best see things. To these misreadings, add his irrepressible impulse to jump into American politics.
The consequence is that Netanyahu has done more than anyone else to identify Israel—that is, the Israel shaped by his policies—with the Republican Party."

Sadly for Israel, Bibi Bomb Bomb doesn't realize that he's lost the fight (and more).  He's still confident that a great majority of Americans see the world as his Rethuglican allies see it, despite the certainty of the agreement moving forward:

"Making a toast to the Jewish New Year at the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem Thursday, the prime minister insisted that 'the overwhelming majority of the American people' agree with him.* Those aren't the words of someone trying to cut his losses. Like a compulsive gambler in one of Sheldon Adelson's casinos, he can't stop."

Stopping him will be up to Israeli voters.
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*Uh, not really, Bibi Bomb Bomb.