The White House defended itself Monday from GOP criticism that US President Barack Obama was minimizing Israel’s concerns on Iran and downgrading its status as one of America’s closest allies.
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney stressed that Israel is indeed America’s “closest ally in the region” and that the US shares Jerusalem’s concerns about Iran.
In a “60 Minutes” interview Sunday night, Obama responded to interviewer Steve Kroft’s question about whether Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was pressuring him to act more aggressively on Iran by saying that, “When it comes to our national security decisions, any pressure that I feel is simply to do what’s right for the American people. And I’m going to block out any noise that’s out there.”
He continued, “I feel an obligation – not pressure but obligation – to make sure that we’re in close consultation with the Israelis on these issues because it affects them deeply. They’re one of our closest allies in the region, and we’ve got an Iranian regime that has said horrible things that directly threaten Israel’s existence.”
The campaign of GOP presidential challenger Mitt Romney quickly jumped on the statement, calling Obama’s comments “the latest evidence of his chronic disregard for the security of our closest ally in the Middle East,” in the words of spokeswoman Andrea Saul.
Virginia Republican Eric Cantor, majority leader of the US House of Representatives, charged that in the interview Obama “downplayed the Jewish state’s concern over Iran’s march to a nuclear weapon as ‘noise.’”