Foreign policy experts say the president will have to use an enormous amount of political capital to sell any Iranian nuclear deal to the public if he gets it done. NY1’s Michael Herzenberg has more on the possible agreement and the very vocal reaction from New Yorkers.
Hundreds of people lined 2nd Avenue near the Israeli Consulate Tuesday night to express their opinions on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his administration's policies.
"We're here to denounce the coming of Premier Bibi Netanyahu,” said one protester.
Despite this demonstration we found support for Netanyahu across town.
"If America had half the guts that Netanyahu had we'd have a much safer world,” said one New Yorker.
But some Jewish people are questioning Netayahu's motivation for speaking to Congress.
"He did it only for the elections,” said another.
Professor Robert Jervis at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs says Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came along way to tell us what we already knew he thought .
"It may have helped do something very important, it may helped reelect him,” said Jervis.
The distinguished scholar does not believe the Israeli politician furthered his cause to derail a nuclear deal with Iran.
"You have to choose between possible worlds and the world Netanyahu wants just isn't possible,” said Jervis.
He says falling short of an agreement to better regulate Iran's enrichment of Uranium leaves two options. Greater economic sanction to squeeze out the current Iranian regime, but then he worries the replacement could be worse. Or bombing Iran's future nuclear facilities every few years if they can be consistently found and successfully targeted.
"Almost everyone thinks that the real danger of Iran getting a bomb is not that it would do so at the declared facilities, but it would do so in secret facilities. Right now, there's almost no inspection outside of the declared facilities. The deal will give much more inspection outside,” said Jervis.