OBAMA TIES ISRAEL DOWN WITH HIS POLICY ON IRAN
Charles Krauthammer
National Post, March 9, 2012
It’s Lucy and the football, Iran-style. After ostensibly tough talk about preventing Iran from going nuclear, the Obama administration acquiesced to yet another round of talks with the mullahs. This, 14 months after the last group-of-six negotiations collapsed in Istanbul because of blatant Iranian stalling and unseriousness. Nonetheless, the new negotiations will be both without precondition and preceded by yet more talks to decide such trivialities as venue.
These negotiations don’t just gain time for a nuclear program about whose military intent the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is issuing alarming warnings. They make it extremely difficult for Israel to do anything about it (while it still can), lest Israel be universally condemned for having aborted a diplomatic solution.
If the administration were serious about achievement rather than appearance, it would have warned that this was the last chance for Iran to come clean and would have demanded a short timeline. After all, President Obama insisted on deadlines for the Iraq withdrawal, the Afghan surge and Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Why leave these crucial talks open-ended when the nuclear clock is ticking?
This re-engagement comes immediately after Obama’s campaign-year posturing about Iran’s nukes. On Sunday, in front of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), he warned that “Iran’s leaders should have no doubt about the resolve of the United States.” This just two days after he’d said (to the Atlantic magazine) of possible U.S. military action, “I don’t bluff.” Yet on Tuesday he returns to the very engagement policy that he admits had previously failed.
Won’t sanctions make a difference this time, however? Sanctions are indeed hurting Iran economically. But when Obama’s own director of national intelligence was asked by the Senate intelligence committee whether sanctions had any effect on the course of Iran’s nuclear program, the answer was simple: No. None whatsoever.
Obama garnered much AIPAC applause by saying that his is not a containment policy but a prevention policy. But what has he prevented? Keeping a coalition of six together is not success. Holding talks is not success. Imposing sanctions is not success.
Success is halting and reversing the program. Yet Iran is tripling its uranium output, moving enrichment facilities deep under a mountain near Qom and impeding IAEA inspections of weaponization facilities.
So what is Obama’s real objective? “We’re trying to make the decision to attack as hard as possible for Israel,” an administration official told the Washington Post in the most revealing White House admission since “leading from behind.”
Revealing and shocking. The world’s greatest exporter of terror (according to the State Department), the systematic killer of Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan, the self-declared enemy that invented “Death to America Day” is approaching nuclear capability—and the focus of U.S. policy is to prevent a democratic ally threatened with annihilation from pre-empting the threat?
Indeed it is. The new open-ended negotiations with Iran fit well with this strategy of tying Israel down. As does Obama’s “I have Israel’s back” reassurance, designed to persuade Israel and its supporters to pull back and outsource to Obama what for Israel are life-and-death decisions.
Yet 48 hours later, Obama tells a news conference that this phrase is just a historical reference to supporting such allies as Britain and Japan—contradicting the intended impression he’d given AIPAC that he was offering special protection to an ally under threat of physical annihilation.
To AIPAC, he declares that “no Israeli government can tolerate a nuclear weapon in the hands of a regime that denies the Holocaust, threatens to wipe Israel off the map, and sponsors terrorist groups committed to Israel’s destruction” and affirms “Israel’s sovereign right to make its own decisions … to meet its security needs.” And then he pursues policies—open-ended negotiations, deceptive promises of tough U.S. backing for Israel, boasts about the efficacy of sanctions, grave warnings about “war talk”—meant, as his own official admitted, to stop Israel from exercising precisely that sovereign right to self-protection.
Yet beyond these obvious contradictions and walk-backs lies a transcendent logic: As with the Keystone pipeline postponement, as with the debt-ceiling extension, as with the Afghan withdrawal schedule, Obama wants to get past Nov. 6 without any untoward action that might threaten his re-election.
For Israel, however, the stakes are somewhat higher: the very existence of a vibrant nation and its 6-million Jews. The asymmetry is stark. A fair-minded observer might judge that Israel’s desire to not go gently into the darkness carries higher moral urgency than the political future of one man, even if he is president of the United States.
OBAMA’S IRAN HYPOCRISY & NETANYAHU’S LONELY DECISION
Charles Bybelezer
Imagine for a moment that Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khameini, at a Martyrs’ Day rally in Tehran, repeated his longstanding call for both the UK and France to be wiped off the map. Imagine then, that after failing for nearly a decade to persuade Iran to abort its nuclear program through diplomatic overtures and intensifying sanctions, the UK and France began advocating, in response to Khameini’s genocidal threats and in accordance with international law, for preventive military action against Iran’s nuclear installations.
Not only would UK Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Nicholas Sarkozy unquestionably garner Barack Obama’s unconditional support, but the US President also would likely agree to do the heavy lifting for them.
How do we know this? Because less than one year ago Obama did just that in Libya. That is, the US led a NATO campaign at the behest of close allies to depose Moammar Qaddafi. And this despite the fact the Libyan dictator posed no threat whatsoever—never mind a mortal one—to either the UK or France. Moreover, Obama was so eager to accommodate American allies that he went to war in Libya without obtaining approval from Congress—arguably a violation of the US Constitution—and in a manner that vastly exceeded the parameters of the coalition’s so-called UN mandate. No amount of “leading from behind” rhetoric can alter this truth.
Yet here is tiny Israel—the US’ most stalwart ally in the world’s most strategically imperative region—having its real existential threat not only shunned by the same Barack Obama, but also publicly undermined by his most senior defense and intelligence officials. Granted Iran is no Libya, but can this alone account for the discrepancy in the way the US President treats his most dependable allies? No. Obama’s inherent bias against the Jewish state is clear, and should be undeniably confirmed to all. His actions also prove once again that Israel is held to unique, unfair standards, thereby reinforcing the importance of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s assertion that “Israel must have the ability always to defend itself, by itself, against any threat.”
We have three pieces of evidence indicating that Netanyahu’s core Iran policies were rebuffed by Obama during their meeting in Washington. First, to persuade the US President to articulate clear “red lines,” preferably but not necessarily defined as Iran’s achievement of a “nuclear capability,” which if passed would prompt US military action against Iranian nuclear facilities; second, in the absence of any willingness directly to engage Iran militarily, a US commitment indirectly to support (at the very least tacitly approve of) an Israeli strike; or , third, should this bare minimum not be met, that Obama set three basic pre-conditions before agreeing to resume his fruitless “engagement” of Tehran’s Mullahs—that Iran close its underground Fordow nuclear facility near Qoms; stop enriching uranium; and remove from the country all uranium enriched beyond 3.5 percent.
First, after meeting with Obama for the better part of Monday, Netanyahu that night opened his speech to AIPAC with the following: “Thank you.… I want to thank you for that wonderful reception. This applause could be heard as far away as Jerusalem—the eternal and united capital of Israel.” The eternal and united capital of Israel, indeed—also a clear message to Obama. In effect, Netanyahu told the President: If you will not support Israel’s legitimate positions regarding Iran, then Israel, in turn, will not even consider your views regarding the “peace process” (conventional wisdom maintaining that Israel cede East Jerusalem—i.e. agree to divide the city—to the Palestinians as part of any deal).
Equally important, the statement can also be viewed as a rebuke of Obama’s 2008 speech to AIPAC. Therein Obama affirmed that “Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel and it must remain undivided,” only to backtrack a day later by describing the word “undivided” as “poorly chosen.” Effectively, Netanyahu rendered moot Obama’s “hawkish” Iran speech given to AIPAC a few days earlier by reminding the audience that Obama lied to them about his Jerusalem policy in 2008.
Secondly, the day after his meeting with Obama, Netanyahu had this to say to US congressional leaders: There are historical precedents in which Israel acted according to its own interests, despite American opposition. Netanyahu noted that notwithstanding Washington’s opposition David Ben-Gurion declared independence in 1948; Levi Eshkol launched a preemptive attack against Egypt in 1967; and Menachem Begin decided to bomb the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981. Coupled with Netanyahu’s stated commitment that Israel always remain “master of its fate” in dealing with Tehran, the writing is on the wall: the Jewish state will go it alone if necessary.
Third, Obama, for his part, also weighed in, holding a “last-minute” press conference—his first in five months—which immediately devolved into an attack on the “loose talk of war” emanating from leading Republican presidential candidates (who, by the way, addressed AIPAC earlier that day) Obama cautioned against “beating the drums of war,” and warned of “consequences for Israel if [military] action [against Iran] is taken prematurely.” Concurrently, World Powers, including the US, reportedly accepted Tehran’s offer to resume negotiations over its nuclear program without preconditions. The news no doubt reached Netanyahu on Capitol Hill.
Taken together, it appears Israel is on its own should Netanyahu decide to act in the near future. Alternatively, the Jewish state can trust that Obama “has Israel’s back” and that he will put an end to Iran’s nuclear program when Israel no longer has the capability to do so. Will Netanyahu accept Obama at his word? Highly unlikely. What that means is that the time has come for Israel’s true allies to rally behind her. She will need it.
(Charles Bybelezer is Publications Chairman at the Canadian Institute for Jewish Research.)
IS OBAMA TRYING TO LEAVE ISRAEL NO CHOICE?
Clifford Orwin
Globe and Mail, March 7, 2012
“Obama to warn Netanyahu against military strikes on Iran.” So proclaimed the headline in last Saturday’s Washington Post. At their meeting on Monday, Barack Obama reportedly did just that, while reaffirming America’s commitment to Israel’s safety. And yet…could this be very different than it seems? Is it the cagey exterior of a policy aimed at leaving Israel no choice but to strike?
Look at it this way. Suppose you were the Obama administration, confronted by an intransigent Iran but facing an election in November and an American public weary of Middle Eastern wars. Wouldn’t you rather shoehorn an ally into undertaking this risky and unpleasant business in your place? Then, even if you too had to intervene (as you would, at the very least to keep open the Strait of Hormuz), you’d have avoided blame for starting the conflict.
It’s happened before, and not just once. Twice already, the United States has declined to intervene against nuclear threats in the Middle East, and twice already, Israel has concluded that it had no choice but to do the job itself. In 1981, it destroyed the Osirak reactor in Iraq, and in 2007, a secret nuclear plant under construction in Syria. In neither case, so far as is known, was there a green light from Washington. But both countries reaped the benefits of actions that were effectively outsourced to Israel.
The Iranian threat is much graver than those. The task of eliminating it is harder and the expected retaliation is more dire. In such a situation, each ally would gladly shift the burden to the other. Israel has naturally been hoping that the United States would dispose of the matter, as befitted the senior partner in the alliance. So far, this has proved wishful thinking under Mr. Obama, as it did under George W. Bush. As the weaker of the two partners, Israel lacks the means to force the United States to act. Washington, however, possesses ample means to coerce Tel Aviv.
The asymmetricality here lies in Iran’s two different “zones of immunity” from attack. Washington has weapons capable of eliminating Iran’s installations at a later stage of hardening than anything known to be in Israel’s arsenal. It can wait for sanctions to fail before launching its hypothetical attack. Israel can’t.
As Yossi Klein Halevi has argued, Israel faces an agonizing choice. Either it strikes Iran’s program while it is still within its power to wreck it, or having missed its chance, it would be reduced to relying on Washington to do so. Either it attacks, risking a break with its closest ally, or it becomes completely dependent on that ally to deal with an existential threat. The former choice would be wrenching, but the latter would violate a fundamental Zionist principle: that the survival of the Jewish state and people must never again be left to the unreliable mercies of others. It was one thing to hope for America to act while Israel remained capable of doing so if necessary. It would be quite another to have forfeited all initiative to it.
The basic problem goes much deeper, then, than Israel’s mistrust of Mr. Obama. Even presidents deemed staunch friends have faltered when Israel most needed them. Two countries are two countries.
At this point, Israel has good reason to doubt that even the toughest sanctions will prevent or delay Iran from building nuclear weapons. Like most sanctions, these have come too late. The findings of the International Atomic Energy Agency confirm that the mullahs can now enrich uranium at their leisure. And every spokesman for the regime, from Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on down, has insisted that nothing will deter it from its oh-so-peaceful nuclear quest—or its doubtless equally “peaceful” resolve to annihilate Israel.
Looking beyond sanctions, Israel sees too much ambiguity in the Obama administration’s positions, too much demonstrated irresoluteness, too many signs of willingness to tolerate a more advanced stage of Iranian nuclearization than Israel deems compatible with its safety. Especially in election years, American fulmination is cheap. (Just ask North Korea, as snug as a bug in a rug with its nuclear weapons that successive administrations in Washington had declared they would never permit.)
Is Washington really seeking to push Israel into intervening before its perceived window of effectiveness shuts? I doubt it. Mr. Obama likely still hopes that, with Iran being a “rational actor,” sanctions will suffice to sway it. But if it were my plan to finagle Israel into attacking, I wouldn’t practice a public diplomacy much different from Mr. Obama’s.
(Clifford Orwin is a professor of political science at the University of Toronto
and a distinguished fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.)
