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.
