President Barack Obama on Tuesday sharpened his sales pitch on the Iran deal by delivering a blunt message: We don’t need another Iraq.

In both a muscular speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Pittsburgh and a taping of “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” Obama cast critics of his diplomacy as the same kind of misguided warmongers who pushed for the invasion of Iraq during George W. Bush’s presidency.


“We’re hearing the echoes of some of the same policies and mindset that failed us in the past,” Obama said in Pittsburgh. His loudest critics, he added, are “the same folks who were so quick to go to war in Iraq and said it would take a few months.”

A few hours later, on the “Daily Show” set in New York City, Obama took another jab at his critics, this time invoking Bush’s vice president, Dick Cheney. He mocked those who he said seem to believe that if “you had brought Dick Cheney to the negotiations, everything would be fine.”

The administration is working to make the case for the Iran deal on a number of different fronts by engaging critics directly. The administration begins a series of classified, members-only briefings on Capitol Hill in the coming days. Secretary of State John Kerry, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew will meet with senators on Wednesday and hold two discussions in the House on Wednesday and Thursday, at the invitation of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

Also on Tuesday, the White House on launched @TheIranDeal, a Twitter handle designed to engage the public and correct misconceptions about the deal.

In recent weeks, Obama and his aides have presented the negotiations with Iran as a choice between peacefully preventing a nuclear Iran and going to war with the Islamic Republic, but Obama appeared to take the argument a step further to question the credibility of his opponents.

“I believe there’s a smarter, more responsible way,” Obama said in Pittsburgh.

“We’ve done the hard and patient work” of diplomacy, he added, “instead of chest-beating which rejects the idea of even talking to our adversaries.”

While the critics Obama referred to are largely Republicans, his pitch comes as the White House is working to make sure it has the support of enough congressional Democrats to sustain a presidential veto.

Sen. Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat, threw his support behind the deal on Tuesday, saying the administration“negotiated this agreement with a single focus — prevent Iran from getting any closer to obtaining a nuclear weapon. They achieved that goal.”

But other Democrats who say they support diplomacy have expressed concerns about the final deal. For example, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) told a town hall audience over the weekend that he saw the accord as merely “managing” Iran’s nuclear development instead of dismantling its facilities.

“When this all began the focus was on dismantlement, dismantling the facilities that would allow them to have a bomb. It seems this has kind of moved now towards to sort of accepting it and managing it and the like,” Wyden said. “So I’m going to be working my way through that.”

He also expressed disappointment that there would be almost a month’s notice before inspections, instead of “anywhere, anytime” and said the vote held Monday in the United Nations on the deal had the effect of “flouting” the congressional review period.

Republican opposition to the Iran deal appears stronger than ever.

“President Obama said he wanted a fact-based debate, but his sales pitch for this deal is built solely on false choices and desperate attacks,” said Cory Fritz, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio).

As the Republicans’ leader in the House, Boehner has led the charge against the Iran deal and given a prominent platform to another top critic, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Kerry used Netanyahu’s support for invading Iraq in 2002 to dismiss his warnings on Iran in February.

“The prime minister, as you will recall, was profoundly forward-leaning and outspoken about the importance of invading Iraq under George W. Bush, and we all know what happened with that decision,” Kerry told the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

In the 2008 election, Obama’s objection to the Iraq War helped him win the Democratic primary against Hillary Clinton, who as a U.S. senator had voted to authorize the invasion — as did Kerry when he was in the Senate. Both have since expressed deep regret for the vote.

Burgess Everett contributed to this report.