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While some folks thought it was fun to tally up the points Bibi and Barack scored against one another, it appears that they actually did some things of substance.

For one thing it appears that apart from Secretary of State Clinton’s highly inappropriate remarks an Al Jazeera, PM Netanyahu is discussing what is meant by “settlement freeze” with the administration.

For instance, Israel has been working on the assumption that, with tacit agreement from the US, it may build inside the lines of existing settlements in the large settlement blocs that it believes it will retain under any future diplomatic agreement….The settlement issue was expected to be one of the top ones dealt with in working groups that have been set up between the US and Israel to discuss a wide range of topics. Israeli sources said work in these groups had already started.”

This, of course, will never be enough for the Arab world and their cheerleaders. But more importantly, it appears that there will be a joint Israeli-American monitoring group to judge how successful the administration’s outreach to Iran has been. Perhaps the concern most Americans have regarding Iran acquiring nuclear weapons is the reason the administration is apparently taking Israel’s concerns seriously.

It would appear, according to these reports that despite their differences, President Obama and PM Netanyahu have decided to work together.

Also see here.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

In Mideast Contest of wills, Jackson Diehl outlines the likely priorities of both President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu.

Contrary to what it would like Iran and the rest of the world to believe, Israel would not attack Tehran’s nuclear facilities without U.S. consent. Militarily, it would be next to impossible; politically, it would be suicidal to flout the United States on a matter of such strategic importance. If there is armed action against Iran during the next several years, it will be because Netanyahu somehow persuades or compels Obama to overrule the prevailing judgment of the U.S. government, which is that an attack is not a viable option.

Similarly, there will be no significant progress toward Middle East peace if Obama cannot move Netanyahu off some of his most cherished precepts — not so much the idea that Palestinians will accept something short of full statehood but that a settlement can be postponed indefinitely even as Israel blockades Hamas in Gaza and expands Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Some will advise the administration that there is nothing to gain in pushing the Israeli leader as long as the Palestinians themselves remain divided and unwilling to accept even reasonable offers — as they have been for several years. But the appearance that the United States is accepting of Israeli intransigence could turn opinion against Obama across the region.

Overall this is a pretty fair assessment once one gets past the condescension towards Netanyahu’s (perceived) positions.

But what’s troublesome is that there’s no sense that preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons could be in America’s (if not the world’s) interests too.

First of all, Reuel Marc Gerecht rejects the consensus that Israel necessarily won’t attack Iranian nuclear facilities without the consent of the Americans.

We shouldn’t be surprised if the Israelis reach a conclusion at odds with Washington’s near-consensus against pre-emptive strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities. In 1981, Jerusalem certainly surmised that a raid against Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor could make Saddam Hussein furious and that he possessed conventional and unconventional means of getting even. But they went ahead and destroyed the reactor.

The consensus in Israel is just as widespread about the correctness of last year’s strike against the secret North Korean-designed reactor at Dir A-Zur in Syria — a project that may well have had Iranian backing. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert ordered the attack although the Bush administration opposed it. And in 1967, Israelis believed that pre-emptive action saved their nation from an Arab-initiated, multifront offensive that could have proved lethal.

And once one considers Israel’s historically based fears, it doesn’t take much to wonder if the prevailing wisdom – as expressed by Diehl – is a bit optimistic.

The Western advice may be sage: The threat of an Israeli retaliatory nuclear strike might be a sufficient threat to discourage Tehran’s mullahs from using a nuclear weapon directly, or from leveraging its protective nuclear umbrella indirectly to more aggressively support anti-Israeli jihadists. But Iran’s penchant for terrorism, its extensive ties to both radical Sunnis and Shiites, its vibrant anti-Semitism, and the likelihood that Tehran will become more aggressive (as has Pakistan in Kashmir) with an atom bomb in its arsenal doesn’t reinforce the case for patience and perseverance.

Consider: If Saddam Hussein had had a nuke in 1990, would George H.W. Bush have risked war? Consider as well the near certainty that ultra-Sunni Saudi Arabia will go nuclear in response to a Shiite Persian bomb. The prospect of another virulently anti-Semitic Arab state — deeply permeated with supporters of al Qaeda — possessing an atomic weapon cannot comfort Jerusalem. A pre-emptive strike offers Israel a chance that this nuclear contagion can be stopped.

Or as Saul Singer points out (h/t Israel Matzav)

But the real reason for the U.S. to pursue a truly non-nuclear (and non-terrorist) Iran is not to avoid Israeli military action, but to advance American interests and security. The Iranian nuclear prospect clouds the international security landscape like the financial crisis looms over the global economy. Both clouds must be removed for the international community to prosper. Just as the financial crisis also presents opportunities, so does the Iranian crisis. Forcing Iran to back down would be the greatest setback for Islamofascism since the fall of radical regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq. Indeed, if Obama defuses the Iranian nuclear program, the world could experience the greatest advance in peace and security since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Conversely, if Iran does go nuclear or near-nuclear, existing clouds will continue to darken.

One of the most cherished precepts of analysts like Jackson Diehl is that with enough nice words and concessions, there is no enemy who can’t be reasoned with and stripped of his enmity. But reality is a stubborn thing and sometimes enemies see negotiations as war by other means.

Crossposted by Soccer Dad.

Jim Hoagland fears that President Obama’s plans for the Middle East are imperiled by Israel. In An Israeli surprise for Obama?, Hoagland writes:

The review cannot be completed until Obama has what may be his toughest meeting yet with a foreign leader. That Oval Office session with Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s newly elected prime minister, will come in mid-May. Netanyahu’s impressions of Obama’s intentions on Iran will determine war-or-peace choices for the Middle East.

The survey of American options on Iran forms a major part of the sprint that the president and his advisers have made toward the 100-day milestone they will reach on Wednesday.They have authored strategic reviews on Afghanistan and Iraq, dispatched special envoys to urgent trouble spots, and invited Middle East leaders to the White House to keep that region’s flickering peace hopes alive.

Obama has already offered diplomatic engagement to Iran without preconditions — making Tehran’s behavior, not Washington’s conduct, the dominant issue for international opinion. The policy adjustments have been necessary and adroitly handled.

But they have also stirred doubts in Israel’s untested and politically heterogeneous government about Obama’s commitment to Israel’s security, as Netanyahu defines it. These misgivings create a queasiness between the two allies that cannot be publicly discussed by either without damaging political consequences.

I do think that Hoagland is correct in that final sentence. While I don’t think there are necessarily diplomatic between the Obama and Netanyahu administrations yet, there are plenty in the media who are willing to play up the likelihood of a clash. But have the policy adjustments been adroitly handled? After reaching out to Iran – especially on the Iranian New Year – and specifically asking Iran to release Roxana Saberi, the administration simply expressed its regret at the slap when she was convicted of espionage.

Hoagland writes further:

There are serious arguments on the other side, beginning with doubts about Israel’s ability to identify, reach and destroy all of Iran’s bomb-building capabilities. There is also a widespread belief that not even the hawkish Netanyahu would risk the rupture with the United States and the fury of the Arab street that an Israeli attack on Islamic Iran could bring.

“The Israelis who have to decide this thing will find these arguments very familiar,” said a former ambassador to Israel from a developing country. “They are precisely the arguments used in 1981 to say Israel could not and should not disable Saddam Hussein’s nuclear reactor in Iraq before that happened. They are arguments that could have been used against striking the North Korean reactor in Syria last year. And yet, it did not turn out that way at all in either case.”

Asked whether Israeli warplanes had the range to fly around Arab-controlled airspace to hit Iran, a European official replied: “You might think not, unless you noticed the emphasis being put on Israel’s in-air refueling capacity in its recent military exercises. In any event, Arab air defenses have never been a problem for Israel.”

(Daniel Pipes has covered the capability and consequences questions.)

But there are additional issues that Hoagland doesn’t address. If Israel deems that Iranian nuclear weapons pose an existential threat to the country, it really doesn’t matter if the PM is Binyamin Netanyahu or Ehud Olmert or Ehud Barak, survival would come before political fallout. It’s unfair of him to characterize Netanyahu as “hawkish.”

Also Hoagland limits the Iranian nuclear question to its effects on Israel. What about the Middle East as a whole? Barry Rubin writes:

1. A nuclear Iran will make it impossible for the West to protect its interests in the Middle East. All Western countries would be too intimidated to act in any way
contrary to Iran’s desires out of concern that Iran would use nuclear weapons against itself, its troops, or others.

2. A nuclear Iran would intimidate all Arab regimes to appease Iran including, for example, rejecting Western basing rights or alliances. They might well believe that the United States is unlikely to go to nuclear war for them. Better get the best surrender terms from Tehran.

This means forget about any Arab-Israeli peace. Arab cooperation with the West would plummet. Western citizens and interests in Arabic-speaking countries would be in great danger. Arab states would be afraid to cooperate with the United States in resisting the expansion of the Iran-Syria bloc and are far more likely to join it. Islamist regimes are more likely to take over in many countries.

Or consider this. If the “hawkish” government of Menachem Begin hadn’t struck the Iraqi reactor in 1982, Kuwait might today still be the 19th province of Iraq and Saddam might still be in power with Uday and Qusay primed to take over.

I don’t doubt that there will be policy differences between the United States and Israel. If the United States views the Iranian nuclear capability as strictly an Israeli issue, those differences will come to the fore rather quickly. Netanyahu’s job, then, as Prime Minister is to make the strongest case possible for Israel’s concerns. Dr. Rubin recommends this summary of Netanyahu’s calculations.

Netanyahu believes the Iranian threat provides Israel with an unprecedented opportunity in that, for the first time since 1920, moderate Arab states share the same strategic assessment. In fact, Iran will be central to the plans Netanyahu will present to Obama. He will explain to the American president that the existence of Israel is the guarantor of the continued existence of the Jewish people following the Holocaust and that nuclear weapons cannot fall into the hands of those who deny the existence of the Jewish state. Netanyahu would prefer that the U.S. deal with the Iranian threat and, if Obama asks what Israel would be willing to give in return, the Israeli premier would show great interest in the subject.

Or perhaps Netanyahu will make it clear that not just Israeli interests are threatened by a nuclear Iran.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.