Mike Huckabee is taking a lot of heat from President Obama, Democrats, media figures, and liberal Jewish groups over remarks he made over the weekend in a radio interview with Breitbart editor Alexander Marlow:

“This president’s foreign policy is the most feckless in American history. It is so naive that he would trust the Iranians. By doing so, he will take the Israelis and march them to the door of the oven,” Huckabee said, adding: “This is the most idiotic thing, this Iran deal. It should be rejected by both Democrats and Republicans in Congress and by the American people. I read the whole deal. We gave away the whole store. It’s got to be stopped.”

As a matter of fact, the Iranian regime has repeatedly threatened to exterminate Israel, to “wipe it from the map,” so a reference to the Holocaust would seem not entirely inappropriate.  The mullahs have proclaimed an aim similar to Hitler’s final solution.  But there is a general taboo in American politics against using the Holocaust as a comparison to political issues.  For example, many people are offended when animal rights activists call eating meat a holocaust.

Perhaps in light of the power of the image of the Iran deal leading to the extermination of Israel, Huckabee’s remarks have drawn fury.  DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who is Jewish, has taken the lead:

“This rhetoric, while commonplace in today’s Republican presidential primary, has no place in American politics,” Wasserman Schultz said, according to CNN. “Cavalier analogies to the Holocaust are unacceptable. Mike Huckabee must apologize to the Jewish community and to the American people for this grossly irresponsible statement.”

Speaking in Addis Ababa this morning, President Obama called the remarks “ridiculous” and “sad,” and “playing fast and loose [with the Holocaust].”

The Anti-Defamation League, ostensibly non-partisan but effectively now a liberal group, also criticized the statement:

“Whatever one’s views of the nuclear agreement with Iran – and we have been critical of it, noting that there are serious unanswered questions that need to be addressed – comments such as those by Mike Huckabee suggesting the president is leading Israel to another Holocaust are completely out of line and unacceptable,” said ADL national director Jonathan A. Greenblatt.

Ron Fournier said on Morning Joe today that Trump’s rise is forcing Huckabee to say extreme things to win back voters he lost. 

For all the harrumphing about Huckabee’s invocation of the Holocaust (and you can expect it to continue and even amplify), the scary fact is that even if the Iranians adhere to the deal, they will be free to get nuclear weapons in ten years, and they remain devoted to the extermination of Israel, and they have funded terror groups that have attacked Jews overseas, notably in the Buenos Aires bombing of a Jewish community center.  This is far closer an analogy to the actual Holocaust than any other political issue.