By giving Iran more leeway as it tries to build a nuclear weapon, President Obama is trusting a “rabid dog,” former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said last night.

“You don’t take the chain off a rabid dog,” Huckabee told Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly, “but that’s what we’ve done.”

Huckabee, who recently left his own Fox show to ponder a second Republican race for president,  said he is “grateful” to Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey and other Democratic leaders for bucking Obama on Iran.

The president said during his State of the Union address that he would “veto any new sanctions bill” from Congress during talks aimed at persuading the Islamic regime to abandon its nuclear arms program.

“We’re dealing with radicals — radicals that want to kill us,” @GovMikeHuckabee says.

Menendez, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, criticized the administration’s reasoning as “talking points that come straight out of Tehran.”

>>> Commentary: Obama, Cameron Send Wrong Signals on Iran

“The way you stop the school bully is you put your fist in his face and you put his butt on the ground,” Huckabee told Kelly (at the 2:50 mark in the video), adding:

We’re not dealing with rational, reasonable people. We’re dealing with radicals — radicals that want to kill us. And the sooner we understand that and admit it, the sooner we bring safety to the American people.

Huckabee also backed (at 3:50) House Speaker John Boehner’s invitation to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, “a voice of reason,” to address a joint session of Congress on the threat posed by Iran. He characterized it as a cooperative move with Democrats.

“We need to let the world know that if Israel decides that it is in their best interest and security to take Iran directly, that we will stand behind them to the last man,” Huckabee said.