As I predicted, the first meeting between President Barack Obama ended with Netanyahu exchanging an innocuous statement of support for 'negotiations' with loopholes wide enough to drive a HumVee through for a basically innocuous statement by Obama that Israel ought to get on with the peace process, the other Arab nations should help, and if those naughty Iranians didn't stop their nuclear weapons program in a year, he was going to get really, really peeved.And look everybody! See what good friends we are and how committed I am to Israel's security?
That's the gist of it. And with nobody actually sure that anything was resolved, so the usual pundits are resorting to the time honored tradition of Making Stuff Up, with the content depending on their particular political persuasion.
As I see it, behind the smiles very little was really decided and the very basic disagreements between Israel and the Obama Administration remain pretty much unresolved...although both sides were willing to cover this with statements that meant very little in the real world.
Netanyahu chiefly wanted to discuss Iran, which he correctly sees as the key to peace and stability in the region and to take on the ridiculous notion promoted by Obama of linking dealing with Iran's nuclear ambitions with the creation of a second Arab Palestinian state.
Obama's goal was to come up with some Israeli red meat for his forthcoming speech to the Muslim world in Cairo, perhaps by pressuring Netanyahu to recognize a two state formula for a Palestinian state based on the Saudi peace ultimatum....and to dissuade Netanyahu from taking out Iran's nukes.
While neither got what he wanted,Netanyahu likely came out slightly ahead, largely because he had the most ammunition for his arguments (probably including messages from Egypt's President Mubarak and Jordan's King Abdullah, both of whom he met with shortly before the trek to Washington) and because Obama's avenues for forcing Israel to do his bidding at this point are limited.
The Sunni Arab autocracies are absolutely appalled at the idea of a resurgent Shiite Iran armed with nukes, particularly the Saudis. The Eastern part of Saudi Arabia near the Persian Gulf is where Saudi oil is located, and it's mostly populated by Saudi Shiites who are treated as second class citizens. The Saudis are terrified that the Iranians could foment unrest there, or use their nuclear weapons to blackmail them and the other Sunni Persian Gulf Emirates by threatening to close down the narrow Shatt Al Arab and cut off oil shipments. During the G-20 summit in Europe, Obama attended ( site of the famous bowing incident) back in April, my sources tell me that King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia had a fairly forceful conversation with Obama on the sidelines about his Iranian non-policy.
The Egyptians and Jordanians are likewise concerned. Egypt's Hosni Mubarak worries that a nuclear armed Iran could empower Hamas and its parent organization, the Muslim Brotherhood, his main political opposition, at a time the aging Mubarak is attempting to hand over power to his son Gamal ( AKA 'Jack') without major domestic violence from an Iranian proxy. That's precisely why the Egyptians have cracked down on Hamas and the weapons smuggling from Iran in a huge way lately.
Aside from it's own Muslim Brotherhood problem, Jordan's King Abdullah and a Bedouin minority rule over a country that is 8o% Palestinian and live if fear of an Iran backed Palestinian Hamastan trying to destabilize Jordan as Arafat and the PLO once attempted to do back in 1970.
There's also the little matter of what amounts to a major collapse in Obama's Middle East policies.
His efforts to move Syria out of Iran's orbit has largely failed, as I or anyone else with knowledge of the region and the players could have told him. The original idea Obama had was to bribe the Syrians and moderate Hezbollah by increased Western recognition and by forcing Israel to give back the Golan heights.
Basher Assad deliberately torpedoed that by announcing that no talks with Israel would be held unless the Israelis agreed to pull out of the strategic Golan Heights beforehand. That's roughly equivalent to a real estate deal where one side signs over the deed to the other free and clear before any price or terms are discussed, and no Israeli government(or indeed anybody) would ever agree to that kind of precondition short of a complete military defeat.
Obama's attempt to move Syria closer to the West by midwifing a closer relationship with US 'ally' Turkey likewise failed and the Turkish-Syrian rapprochement Obama put together by promoting joint military exercises between the two and allowing massive arms sales by Turkey to Lebanon actually brought Turkey closer to Syria and Iran instead of the reverse.
As I write this, Syria and Hezbollah are hard at work rigging Lebanon's June 7th election to toss the rest of the pro-Western anti-Syrian parliament out of office and turn the country over to Hezbollah, along with the millions in aid and armaments both Obama and the Bush Administration sent there.
In Iran itself, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is expected to easily win the June 12th Iranian 'election' handily, and Iran just responded to President Obama's attempts at diplomatic engagement by testing an advanced ballistic missile capable of hitting Israel and southern Europe as well as US bases in the Middle East.
And I haven't even mentioned Pakistan and Afghanistan yet.
In other words, Obama has other things to worry about on the foreign policy front than a Palestinian state - especially with Hamas and Fatah still disunited and divided.
As far as pressure on Netanyahu, Obama's options are also limited.
While Obama and many of his appointees might not be particularly pro-Israel, Congress overwhelmingly is,and so is the American public. Congress will have to stand for re-election before Obama does, and it's unlikely that most of Congress would go along with an overt attempt to cut off military sales to Israel.Neither would US defense contractors, since most of the military aid to Israel is spent here.
What Obama may resort to is covert pressure, like non-support of Israel in the UN, a colder atmosphere emanating from the White House, a hold on funding for joint weapons projects like the Arrow Missile and a partial cut off of aid, like the F-22 fighter that Israel actually paid substantial money to the US to be privy to the technology and then got screwed out of. Since this is all likely to happen anyway given Obama's basic attitude towards Israel, they have very little to lose.
And ironically, the more the covert pressure on Israel is increased and security cooperation and coordination lessens, the less leverage Obama is going to have on Israel. They will simply ramp up their already formidable domestic arms industry,and improvise or buy what spare parts they need for US gear under the table from places like Canada, India or Germany. That's what they did before, when the French cut off all arms shipments right before the`67 War.
And in the last analysis, if things get too dicey, Obama will simply have alienated another US ally, who may very well go looking for some new best friends.
Both Netanyahu and Obama know all this, which is why Netanyahu came away from their meeting without promising to evacuate Jews from Judea and Samaria ( AKA the West Bank) or overt support for a Palestinian State. Instead he mouthed a desire for further negotiations, which was meaningless because Israel still insists on the Roadmap obligations of the Palestinians being carried out - which isn't going to happen anytime soon-and because he still insists that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state, which will also never happen anytime soon.
On the other hand, Netanyahu did not get a commitment out of Obama to deal with Iran in any meaningful way. What Obama essentially told him was that he'll take another look at things at year's end and see where they are, which meant absolutely nothing, except that the US is prepared to accept a nuclear Iran if it means being able to extricate US forces from Iraq, Afghanistan and the rest of the Middle East. Iran is not going to be any more interested in curbing their nuclear weapons program in December than they are now.
Likewise, Obama did not get what he wanted from Netanyahu. He obviously was unable to get a commitment out of the Israeli leader not to settle Iran's nuclear threat himself, which is why he's resorted to having people like Joe Biden and CIA chief Leon Pannetta play boogyman with threats about what might happen if Israel decided to take out Iran's nukes.
And since Netanyahu refused to provide any red meat for Obama to throw to the Arab street, President Obama decided to provide some himself, contradicting Netanyahu and explicitly issuing a statement that the Palestinians need not recognize Israel as a Jewish State.
That won't make front page news here, but you can bet it will in Cairo and Ramallah.Which was entirely Obama's intention .
No comments:
Post a Comment