What Does Obama’s Win Mean For Bibi?
November 7, 2012 § 5 Comments
As it became clear last night that President Obama was headed for an easy victory, a bunch of people on my twitter feed began speculating – or more accurately, making jokes – about what this would mean for Bibi Netanyahu. The joking actually turned into a serious conversation about whether Obama will somehow punish Netanyahu for his perceived support of Romney and clashes with the president, with some going so far as to speculate that he will tell Netanyahu that no help on Iran is forthcoming. It seems that Netanyahu is worried himself, as he is already clamping down on Likud members who are expressing negative reactions to Obama’s reelection out of fear that it will damage his standing with the White House even further.
Despite what is obviously not a great relationship between the two men, I don’t quite see how Obama’s reelection is going to have much of a negative effect on Netanyahu or the U.S.-Israel relationship at large. This is true for a few reasons. First, as Steven Cook persuasively argued last month, the relationship is institutionalized to the point that personal animosity between the countries’ leaders is not going to have much of an effect, if any. Let’s assume that Obama decides this morning that he wants to put the screws on Netanyahu – what precisely is he going to do? Aid to Israel is controlled by Congress, the joint military and intelligence cooperation is so deeply ingrained that it would take a long time to reverse, and there are deep ties between the two countries at all levels of government, business, and society. There are smaller things that Obama could do on the margins, but the immediate consequences are close to zero.
Second, and I cannot stress this enough, if you think that the myriad of ways in which Obama supported Israel during his first term was just a feint to win an election, then you are falling victim to the same delusion that said Nate Silver and all of the polls predicting an Obama win were deliberately skewing the evidence. Quite simply, there is absolutely nothing to suggest that all of a sudden funding for Iron Dome, joint military exercises, vetoing of anti-Israel UN resolutions, and other similar actions are going to stop now that Obama doesn’t have to worry about senior citizens’ votes in Florida. I will bet any amount of money that there is no drop-off in the administration’s support of Israel in the security and diplomatic spheres, and the folks who think otherwise have a large burden of proof to overcome that cannot be swept away merely by shouting “but he didn’t visit Israel” or “he left Netanyahu waiting while he ate dinner with his family.”
Third, Obama is not very popular among Israelis, and so even if he wanted to punish Netanyahu by trying to interfere in the Israeli election, it just wouldn’t work. Bill Clinton might have been able to sway Israelis when he was president, but Obama does not have the popularity, credibility, or familiarity with Israeli voters to pull of such a move. The fact that Obama was reelected is not going to factor into Israelis’ calculations when they go to the polls, as Brent Sasley helpfully pointed out previously. The idea that Netanyahu now has to be running scared because his hopes to have Romney elected did not pan out is a pretty flimsy one.
Finally, the suggestion that Obama is now going to tell Netanyahu that the U.S. has no interest in confronting Iran makes little sense to me based on previous U.S. actions and Obama’s long record of statements indicating that he views an Iranian nuclear bomb as a real problem. Aside from Stuxnet, crippling sanctions, and an increased carrier presence in the Gulf, Obama has made clear that preventing nuclear proliferation is perhaps the foreign policy issue that he holds most dear. The disagreement between he and Netanyahu over the red line of nuclear capability vs. nuclear weapons is still going to be there, but Obama has held firm to his own timeline so far and he is not going to now somehow make it even more firm because he has been reelected. The bottom line here is that Obama is worried about an Iranian nuclear weapon as well, and he is not going to drop his concerns just because he and Netanyahu do not get along very well.
P.S. For another argument on why the Obama revenge meme is an ill-informed one that focuses on different variables than mine, check out Peter Beinart this morning.
Which Of These Two Things Is More Important?
May 18, 2012 § Leave a comment
Bibi Netanyahu and Ehud Barak are both abroad and are, among other things, engaged in their usual efforts to keep the pressure up on Iran. Netanyahu is in Prague while Barak was in Washington, but there are mixed signals coming from their dual diplomatic missions. After bringing seven cabinet members with him (including Avigdor Lieberman, who is apparently allowed to engage in actual diplomacy on rare occasions) and meeting with the Czech president yesterday, Netanyahu today said that he sees no evidence that Iran is about to halt its nuclear program, and compared its negotiation strategy to that of North Korea with the ultimate goal of delaying and buying more time. In doing so, he threw a bucket of cold water on the P5+1 talks scheduled for May 23 by making it clear that he views them as a farce. This is of course not surprising, but coming on the eve of the NATO summit and less than a week before the negotiations in Baghdad, it certainly reads as Netanyahu communicating his desire to strike Iran sooner rather than later, and unilaterally if need be. He also emerged with some support from his hosts, as Israel and the Czech Republic issued a joint statement expressing concern over Iran’s uranium enrichment program and the Czech foreign minister reiterated that the Czech Republic plans on continuing to support Israel within the EU. Combined with the story in Yediot that Israeli military and defense officials have suddenly gone quiet on Iran, it points to Israel preparing to attack on its own timetable and by itself if need be.
Meanwhile, Barak was in the U.S. meeting with Leon Panetta to request more money for the Iron Dome missile defense system and undoubtedly to talk about Iran as well. This comes on the heels of Israeli military intelligence chief Aviv Kochavi’s secret visit to Washington a couple of weeks ago to talk about Iran as well. Barak’s meeting with Panetta must have gone well, because it was announced afterward that not only is the U.S. committing more money to Iron Dome down the road, it is providing an immediate extra boost of $70 million so that Israel can fund more Iron Dome batteries in 2012. It seems unlikely to me that the funding guarantees for Iron Dome do not come with a promise of Israeli restraint in return, since this is a crucial component of Israel’s defense strategy and this is an area where the U.S. has leverage over the Iran issue. It is widely presumed that the U.S. does not want Israel to attack Iran, and it certainly does not want Israel to do so before the U.S. strategy of sanctions and P5+1 negotiations is exhausted, so the fact that top Israeli officials are still shuttling to Washington for close consultations and emerging with money for Israeli military priorities indicates that the U.S. and Israel are on the same page with regard to a strike on Iranian facilities.
So which of these two events has more explanatory power in thinking about what is going to happen next with Iran? As my regular readers know, I think that actions speak louder than words here, and I don’t believe that we are going to see an Israeli strike on Iran this summer. There are obviously electoral considerations in play that make some think that Israel will launch an attack before November, which is presumed to then tie President Obama’s hands and leave him no choice but to fully support Israel irrespective of the strike’s consequences. While this makes sense, I don’t think that the Pentagon would be authorizing extra money for Iron Dome that was not in the original defense budget if Obama and Panetta thought that Israel was going to flout their wishes, and so my money is on Barak’s itinerary being a lot more consequential than Netanyahu’s this week.
