Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Where Obama’s Reaction to Netanyahu’s Win Does and Doesn’t Matter

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Iran, Iraq, ISIS, Israel, Middle East, Netanyahu, Obama, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Palestinians, peace process, Syria, terrorism

If you had any doubts that the Obama administration is completely out to lunch when it comes to the Middle East peace process, they should be erased for good by U.S. reactions to Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s reelection victory. Statements by American officials since the Israel results came in make clear that President Obama is not only on the wrong track on the merits, but lacks a clue even how to implement his own misguided strategy effectively.

As I’ve written previously, the way to a sustainable peace between Palestinians and Israelis is not to try to win for the former at the bargaining table what they are less capable of winning on the battlefield than ever. This approach – which has dominated Arab-Israeli diplomacy since at least the 1967 war and Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza – can only encourage the Palestinians’ recalcitrance (by convincing them that foreign pressure on Israel will continue regardless of their behavior) while creating no incentives for Israeli concessions (barring the kind of harsh American and European measures that seem inconceivable – even though the Washington Post has noted that some of the latter’s leaders “have begun to openly debate employing sanctions against Israel….”).

Instead, the United States should encourage a peace based on current and foreseeable power realities in the region – meaning overwhelming Israeli strategic superiority. In policy terms, this means clearly telling the Palestinians that their only hope for meaningful progress is behavioral change dramatic enough and prolonged enough to convince Israeli majorities that statehood or something like it has become safe. That is, America is leaving the two sides to their own – incredibly unequal – devices.

Unfortunately, Mr. Obama remains wed to recipes for failure. The dispositive evidence? Responding to Netanyahu’s last-minute campaign promise to reverse himself and oppose the idea of statehood for Palestinians, the State Department announced that it might not veto United Nations Security Council resolutions critical of the Jewish state.

But this quasi-threat is a hissy fit – at very best. For the administration has brought up no plausible ideas for restarting the peace negotiations in which it puts so much stock. Indeed, in addition to making clear to reporters that “there will be no change in military, intelligence and security cooperation,” and that it will continue opposing the Palestinian Authority’s efforts to join the International Criminal Court (which is scheduled to take place on April 1, and which would enable it to file war crimes cases against Israel), Obama aides told The Wall Street Journal that “the White House now sees no chance for restarting peace talks while” Mr. Obama and his Israeli counterpart “remain in office.” Of course, to Netanyahu and his backers, that’s a promise, not a threat.

Fortunately, the prospect of a freeze on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process has never been less relevant to U.S. security interests. And it will remain so while all actors in the Middle East, except maybe for the Palestinians, have much bigger fish to fry – like the inter-related rise of ISIS, the unfolding break-ups of Iraq and Syria, and the expansion of Iranian influence. But this latest reminder of American diplomatic incoherence can only weaken the U.S. position among Middle Eastern friends, foes, and everyone in between.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Of Chickensh– & Avoiding Stupid Sh–

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Arabs, chickensh--, geopolitics, Iran, ISIS, Israel, Middle East, Netanyahu, nuclear weapons, Obama, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Palestinians, stupid sh--, Sunnis, terrorists

Usually, swipes at foreign leaders made anonymously by U.S. diplomats don’t create too much of a stir. After all, even when (as is often the case), they’re deliberate leaks aimed at sending official messages unofficially, they’re anonymous. So who knows how high ranking and therefore authoritative the muck throwers are? Above all, anyone who does speak for attribution can easily deny that they represent government policy, or even the views of anyone who really counts.

But an exception seems to be the shots against Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu from Obama administration policymakers reported recently by Atlantic correspondent Jeffrey Goldberg. Even their target felt compelled to respond.

I have no idea whether this dust-up will rage on, much less whether it reveals or portends anything genuinely new in U.S.-Israel relations. What I do know is that, if the complaints do reflect what a critical mass of the president’s top advisors really think, there are several big, important ironies at work here. The three biggest:

The first and most obvious: Aides to a president widely slammed for timidity abroad are calling another government head “chickensh–”? Granted, their critique focuses on Netanyahu’s alleged unwillingness to make peace with the Palestinians (and Sunni Arab states) for fear of antagonizing hardline Israeli voters. In fact, the Obama officials reportedly specified that the Israeli leader’s supposed fear of “launching wars” is a “good thing.” But you’d think that folks in an administration arguably guilty of politically inspired difference-splitting in conducting an underwhelming military campaign in Libya, and of waiting for months even before approving modest airstrikes against ISIS terrorists would demonstrate just a little self-awareness.

Second, and perhaps less obvious, it’s likely that many of the same aides attacking Netanyahu, or at least their colleagues, have been the same officials eagerly spreading the word to the press that the president’s foreign policy should be praised for avoiding “stupid sh–.” As I’ve written, although they, and the president, have taken heat for touting such prudence as a major diplomatic guiding principle, for a nation as inherently strong, secure, and wealthy as the United States, it’s as good a lodestar as any and better than most.

Third, and perhaps least obvious of all, these Obama snipers appear completely unaware that Netanyahu’s caution arguably, and quite sensibly, could reflect his judgment that Israel’s position, too, is secure enough to justify standpat-ism.

At first glance, it may seem ludicrous to compare the geopolitical situations of the two allies. America of course is a huge, indeed continent-sized country located literally oceans away from its leading prospective enemies and boasting immense natural wealth. Israel seems to be the opposite in all these ways.

At the same time, though it is, as the phrase goes, “surrounded by enemies,” Israel has probably never been more secure militarily. As I’ve pointed out previously, with each passing year, the Palestinians’ strategic position keeps weakening. They remain painfully far from being able to change the military status quo unilaterally, and as long as the ISIS is still a threat, the rest of the Arab world looks less likely than ever to ride to their rescue, or even help them in any remotely meaningful way.

The emergence of an ISIS state in a large chunk of current Iraqi and Syrian territory would hardly be welcomed by the Israelis, but this development would surely be strongly resisted by the ostensibly moderate Sunni countries – making them even less inclined to pressure Israel. Indeed, according to many reports, ISIS’ emergence – and Washington’s tardy response – is generating covert cooperation between the Jewish state and Sunni regimes. And although ISIS’ anger seems focused at least for now in an operational sense on the Sunni countries and the West, not on Israel, does anyone really believe that even dramatic Israeli-Palestinian peace progress would affect the jihadis’ agenda?

There’s no doubt that Israel is very afraid of the possibility of Iran going nuclear. But nothing its Obama administration critics apparently want it to do vis-a-vis the Palestinians and the Sunni countries would help on that score. In fact, in an additional irony, not only does Iran seem to have prompted tacit Israeli-Sunni detente, but U.S. Efforts to derail Iran’s nuclear drive are motivated in part by its own fear that “chickensh–” Netanyahu will attack Tehran’s nuclear sites if diplomacy fails.

So it turns out that the most encouraging action the Obama foreign policy team could take would be to start leaking to reporters that the Netanyahu “chickensh–” charges were really meant as a compliment – and that they’re going to start seriously examining all the ways in which their own “stupid sh–” point could smarten up America’s own diplomacy.