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 Although cold-shouldered by the administration, Netanyahu has
offered an olive branch, saying he meant no disrespect to Obama by
accepting an invitation to address U.S. lawmakers that was
orchestrated by the president's rival Republicans.
As many as one-fifth of Democratic members plan to sit out the
speech to protest what they see as a politicization of Israeli
security, an issue on which Congress usually unites.
The White House is wary of Netanyahu using the forum to lay bare the
closed-door negotiations designed to curb Iran's nuclear drive.
Obama on Monday appeared to wave off any prospect the bedrock U.S.
alliance with Israel might be ruined by the rancor.
"I don’t think it's permanently destructive," Obama told Reuters in
an interview. "I think that it is a distraction from what should be
our focus. And our focus should be, ‘How do we stop Iran from
getting a nuclear weapon?’"
Netanyahu, who has played up his security credentials ahead of a
closely contested March 17 election in Israel, has denied his speech
would have any design other than national survival.
 "I plan to speak about an Iranian regime that is threatening to
destroy Israel," he told the pro-Israel U.S. lobby AIPAC on Monday.
"The last thing that I would want is for Israel to become a partisan
issue, and I regret that some people have misperceived my visit here
this week as doing that."
He did not elaborate on the speech's content. One aide said
Netanyahu would inform U.S. lawmakers of details on the nuclear
talks in hope they would question the administration and thus defer
a March-end target date for a framework deal with Iran.
Israel believed members of Congress "do not necessarily know the
details of the deal coming together, which we do not see as a good
deal," the aide told reporters on condition of anonymity.
Netanyahu wants the Iranians stripped of nuclear projects that might
be used to get a bomb - something Tehran insists it does not want.
Washington deems the Israeli demand unrealistic.
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Under a 2013 interim deal, the United States and five other powers
agreed in principle to let Iran maintain limited uranium enrichment
technologies. U.S. national security adviser Susan Rice argued on
Monday that this commitment could not be undone.
"As desirable as that would be it is neither realistic nor
achievable," she told AIPAC, over cheers by some audience members
supporting Netanyahu's hard-line tack on the Iran talks.
"If that is out goal, our partners will abandon us and undermine the
very sanctions we have imposed so effectively together," Rice added,
urging U.S. lawmakers not to intervene.
Congress, she said, "shouldn't play the spoiler now."
A deal with Iran is far from guaranteed, given U.S. assessments that
more than a decade of carrot-and-stick diplomacy with Iran might
again fail to clinch a final accord.
"I would say that it's probably still more likely than not that Iran
doesn't get to yes," Obama told Reuters. "It is more likely that we
could get a deal now than perhaps three or five months ago. But
there are still some big gaps that have to be filled."
(Additional reporting by Patricia Zengerle and Matt Spetalnick;
Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
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