The president was most animated when talking about the chaotic arms race he fears would break out if Iran acquired a nuclear weapon, and he seemed most frustrated when talking about what he sees as a deliberate campaign by Republicans to convince American Jews that he is anti-Israel. "Every single commitment I have made to the state of Israel and its security, I have kept," he told me. "Why is it that despite me never failing to support Israel on every single problem that they've had over the last three years, that there are still questions about that?"
We have ourselves a prime example of cheap republicans. From today's WSJ, which wrongly says Obama's "toughened" his rhetoric on Iran. Obama's words on Iran have been consistent. It's just that now they've been captured in one single, extensive interview:
On a day when President Barack Obama toughened his rhetoric on Iran in an interview with The Atlantic, Mr. Romney accused the president of being too cozy with unfriendly nations, calling it “foreign policy by friendship. “He has a view that America will have a stronger foreign policy if they just get to know him better,” Mr. Romney said. “You know, I like friends but I recognize there’s some people that don’t like us very much.”Here's more from the Atlantic's interview with Obama on Iran and his relationship with Israel's Netanyahu.
GOLDBERG: Are you friends? Do you talk about things other than business? PRESIDENT OBAMA: You know, the truth of the matter is, both of us have so much on our plates that there's not always a lot of time to have discussions beyond business. Having said that, what I think is absolutely true is that the prime minister and I come out of different political traditions. This is one of the few times in the history of U.S.-Israeli relations where you have a government from the right in Israel at the same time you have a center-left government in the United States, and so I think what happens then is that a lot of political interpretations of our relationship get projected onto this. But one thing that I have found in working with Prime Minister Netanyahu is that we can be very frank with each other, very blunt with each other, very honest with each other. For the most part, when we have differences, they are tactical and not strategic. Our objectives are a secure United States, a secure Israel, peace, the capacity for our kids to grow up in safety and security and not have to worry about bombs going off, and being able to promote business and economic growth and commerce. We have a common vision about where we want to go. At any given moment -- as is true, frankly, with my relationship with every other foreign leader -- there's not going to be perfect alignment of how we achieve these objectives.
Jeffrey Goldberg, who interviewed Obama for the Atlantic, talks to Andrea Mitchell:
