When Washington echoes Jerusalem

Donald Trump's State of the Union address in which he framed Iran as a direct security threat to the US marks a significant shift in American perception and could shape whether Washington ultimately chooses force over diplomacy

- • By HERB KEINON

US PRESIDENT Donald Trump has adapted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's framing of the Iran issue to be an American problem, to assure the American public the US is not fighting Israel's wars for it. Here, the president delivers the State of the Union address in the House Chamber of the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on Tuesday. (Nathan Howard/Reuters)

(Nathan Howard/Reuters)

On March 3, 2015, a day before Purim, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stood at the podium in the neoclassical, walnut-panelled House Chamber and delivered a speech against an impending nuclear deal with Iran to a special joint session of Congress. Some 58 Democratic senators and congressmen boycotted the speech.

On Tuesday night, February 24, a week before Purim, US President Donald Trump stood at that same podium, in that same hall, and delivered an hour-and-47-minute State of the Union address, some three minutes of which were devoted to Iran. A few dozen Democratic representatives also boycotted his speech.

But the similarities did not end with the setting, the boycotts, or that Iran was one of the topics. What was striking and strategically significant was how both leaders framed the Iranian problem. Eleven years apart, Trump's words Tuesday night echoed the warnings Netanyahu delivered in 2015. The difference was not in the language; it was in the speaker.

"The foremost sponsor of global terrorism could be weeks away from having enough enriched uranium for an entire arsenal of nuclear weapons, and this with full international legitimacy," Netanyahu warned 11 years ago.

Trump said this on Tuesday: "But one thing is certain: I will never allow the world's No. 1 sponsor of terror which they are by far - to have a nuclear weapon. Can't let that happen."