When President Obama meets Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu today,
he will have only two goals. He may succeed in one and will
certainly fail in the other.
Obama’s goals are simple. First, to avoid a repeat of the
televised lecture by Netanyahu immediately after the two met.
Before Netanyahu’s arrival last year, Obama harshly criticized
Israel and demanded peace talks based on the pre-1967 war borders
with the Palestinians. In what was supposed to be a friendly
televised chat after their Oval Office meeting, Netanyahu politely
but firmly took Obama to school and bluntly rejected the 1967
baseline. It was a public relations disaster for Obama that he can
prevent this time by just refusing another such event. He may even
deny Netanyahu the side-by-side press conferences common to
meetings with other nations’ leaders.
Second, Obama wants Israel to commit that it will not
attack Iran this year. His administration has been frantically
trying to persuade Israel to delay any attack, and has been met
with quiet opposition and growing silence from the Israeli
side.
Obama’s two goals are based only on avoiding damage to his
campaign. If there is another public break with Israel or if — as
is most likely — Israel attacks Iran’s nuclear facilities, Obama’s
campaign will be distracted and damaged. Any resemblance between
Obama’s goals and America’s national interest is purely
coincidental.
Obama is playing for time. He wants the world’s nuclear
cauldron — Iran, North Korea, Pakistan et al. — not to boil over
before his election. That is the primary reason that we’ve — again
— filled the North Korean begging bowl to cease nuclear
production. This is, what, the third or fourth time we’ve done
this? And this time, like every time before, we’ll deliver the
bribes (fuel oil, food, whatever) which will be used to prop up the
Norks’ regime, their people will continue to starve, and they will
go on with their nuke program. But nothing will be noisy until
after the election.
If only those noisy Israelis would go along and shut up
for the rest of the year. But their interest in Obama’s campaign is
less than their interest in national survival. Which is why, in
Canada before coming here to meet Obama, Netanyahu warned against
some new attempt at negotiations with Iran because they would just
serve to give Iran more time to produce nuclear weapons.
Building up to today’s meeting, Team Obama has puffed and
fumed. Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey went so far as to
say Iran is a “rational actor.” Indeed it is, but only in the sense
of the Iranian theological “rationale.” Iran is governed by Shia
“twelvers,” believers in a mystical “twelfth imam” whose return to
earth will create a global Islamic paradise. And the “twelvers” —
unique among the world’s religions - believe that an act of man can
bring about the deity’s return to earth. Unfortunately, they
believe that an apocalyptic event is the way to bring the twelfth
imam back. This is a rationality that makes nuclear war a career
objective for the “twelvers.”
Obama has been making noise about how tough and decisive
he is on Iran. In a widely-reported interview with the
Atlantic magazine, he said that we “have Israel’s back”
and will destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons program if economic
sanctions don’t succeed.
Obama also said that, “I think that the Israeli government
recognizes that, as president of the United States, I don’t bluff.”
He went on, “I also don’t, as a matter of sound policy, go around
advertising exactly what our intentions are. But I think both the
Iranian and the Israeli governments recognize that when the United
States says it is unacceptable for Iran to have a nuclear weapon,
we mean what we say.”
Obama’s formulations are artful. He says that we would
destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons program if economic sanctions
fail.
Obama’s “bluff” is open-ended. Sanctions have been tried
against Iran for many years, and have had zero effect on its
nuclear program. They can go on forever, giving Iran whatever time
it needs to complete its nuclear development program. The regime
has made its nuclear program a top national priority and isn’t
going to give it up peacefully.
Obama wants to sound tough without committing himself to
anything. The Iranians understand this. For eight years, George W.
Bush said the same things: that for Iran to have nuclear weapons is
unacceptable and that all options are on the table. But saying
those words and actually trying to effectuate them as a policy are
two different things. Both Bush and Obama said the words and did
nothing to deny Iran’s nuclear progress. By repetition of words,
passage of time, and inaction, two presidents have proven that we
are willing to do nothing to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran and that,
whatever options may be “on the table,” none that will be exercised
will be the only thing that can work: extensive and intense
military interdiction of Iran’s nuclear weapons
development.
Obama now tells Iran not to call his bluff. What
bluff? Obama has made no threat with a date certain
for enforcement, only that someday, if economic sanctions “fail”
will we take military action. That’s not a bluff, it’s barely a
schoolyard taunt. It’s rhetorical, a campaign promise and nothing
more. The only bluff Obama is running is to the American voters so
that he can get through the election without doing anything about
Iran (and a host of other war issues, especially
Afghanistan).
There’s no hope of anything better from Obama. Which makes
an Israeli attack on Iran not just inevitable but
essential.
If Israel does not attack Iran soon, Obama — and Bush
before him — will have gifted the mullahs with the time they
needed to develop their nuclear arsenal. When they have done so, it
is not only Israel that will be in mortal danger. So will we and
every other nation that is a target Islamic
terrorism.
