WASHINGTON (JTA) — President Barack Obama said his opponents in the Iran nuclear deal fight were backed by “billionaires” and urged followers to talk “squishy” lawmakers out of opposing the deal.

Obama in a 20-minute phone call Thursday with supporters who were invited through an array of liberal organizations backing the deal, said opponents “would be opposed to any deal with Iran.”

Arguments against the deal, he said are coming “partly from the $20 million that’s being spent lobbying against the bill on TV ads” and “partly from the same columnists and former administration officials that were responsible for us getting into the Iraq war“ who backed the 2003 Iraq invasion.

The $20 million appears to refer to Citizens for a Nuclear Free Iran, a group affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee which has raised at least that much for ads to persuade Congress members to kill the deal. Rival organizations also have raised money; J Street, a liberal Jewish Middle East policy group has raised over $4 million to run its own ads.

“The lobbying that is taking place on the other side is fierce, it is well financed, it is relentless,” he said.

He likened the fight to preventing a war like the one in Iraq in 2003. “One of the frustrations that I’ve always had about the run-up to the Iraq war was that everybody got really loud and really active after it was too late as opposed to on the front end,” Obama said on the call.

“As big of a bully pulpit as I have, it’s not enough,” he said. “And if you’ve got a whole bunch of folks who are big check writers to political campaigns, running TV ads, and billionaires who happily finance SuperPACs and they are putting the squeeze on members of Congress, even well-meaning ones, and good folks, and they don’t hear from you, this opportunity could slip away.”

Congress has the power within the next two months to kill the July 14 sanctions relief for nuclear restrictions deal, but only if opponents muster the two thirds majorities in both chambers to override the veto Obama has promised on any deal-killing law.

Most Republicans, like Israel’s government, oppose the deal. That makes the battlefield for votes Democrats, with each side vying to secure commitments to vote one way or another.

Obama, who met Wednesday evening with members of the U.S. House of Representatives Democratic caucus, said he sensed some Democrats were wavering.

“They’re feeling it,” he said. “I’m meeting these members of Congress. And they don’t really buy the arguments of the opponents, but I can tell when they start getting squishy. And they start getting squishy because they’re feeling political heat. And you guys have to counteract that with the facts.”

Obama defended the deal, and did not stint in describing Iran as still dangerous to Israel – but said the deal was the best guarantee of keeping Israel safe.

“We are promoting the U.S. and Israel’s security,” he said.

Earlier Thursday, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., the leader of House democrats, said she was confident she had the numbers to defeat any veto override.

“I’m confident because of the nature of the agreement,” Pelosi said at her weekly briefing with reporters. She suggested that Democrats who voted to override the veto would face political consequences, like Obama, harking back to vote before the Iraq War.

“Overwhelmingly, Democrats in the House voted against that, but for those who didn’t it’s serious gum stuck to their shoe,” she said. “It’s your vote that you’re going to be held accountable for.”

Pelosi also cast the fight as one against a well-funded opposition, and also alluded to the TV ads run by Citizens for a Nuclear Free Iran.

“The outside will have endless money, $40 million to spend on TV and going door to door to poison the well on this,” she said.

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