Aaron David Miller, a veteran of Israeli-Arab diplomacy during
the Clinton and Bush fils administrations,
analyzes the relationship between President Obama and Prime
Minister Netanyahu. Looking back at previous periods of US-Israeli
tension during the Ford, Carter, and Bush père
administrations, Miller writes:
But President Obama’s Bibi problem is different in several
respects from his predecessors — a fact that all but guarantees
that tensions with the Israelis on this issue are not going to
subside anytime soon. The 2012 election has kept them in a box.
Indeed, the president’s speech at the U.N. General Assembly last
month notwithstanding — more a campaign speech than one that
addressed the Israeli-Palestinian issue — if Obama is re-elected,
buckle your seat belts. It’s going to be a wild ride with the
Israelis.
Among the differences, Miller argues, are that previous
administrations had a strategy during periods of friction with
their Israeli counterparts, which led to diplomatically productive
outcomes, and that previous administrations had established a
modicum of trust with their Israeli counterparts; neither of those
things are really true with Obama. And one more difference:
Finally, there’s the president himself, who clearly believes he
knows best how to run the peace process. Obama doesn’t just have a
Bibi problem, he’s got an Israel problem. Obama is not anti-Israel,
but unlike his two predecessors — Bill Clinton and George W. Bush
— he’s not in love with the idea of Israel.
He falls somewhere north of Jimmy Carter on the pro-Israel
spectrum and south of George H.W. Bush.
I wonder if Obama might fall even further south on that spectrum
in a second term. Consider that Dennis Ross (who Miller worked with
during the Clinton years) is
leaving the administration at the end of this year. Ross has
provided a pro-Israel prospective within the administration, and
has seemed isolated at times.
This Politico item from last year gives a taste:
Sources say within the interagency process, White House Middle
East strategist Dennis Ross is staking out a position that
Washington needs to be sensitive to Netanyahu’s domestic political
constraints including over the issue of building in East Jerusalem
in order to not raise new Arab demands, while other officials
including some aligned with Middle East peace envoy George Mitchell
are arguing Washington needs to hold firm in pressing
Netanyahu…
“He [Ross] seems to be far more sensitive to Netanyahu’s
coalition politics than to U.S. interests,” one U.S. official told
POLITICO Saturday. “And he doesn’t seem to understand that this has
become bigger than Jerusalem but is rather about the credibility of
this administration.”
What some saw as the suggestion of dual loyalties shows how
heated the debate has become.
That the sort of people who might leak that anonymous quote
might have unchecked influence in a second Obama term is not a
comforting thought. The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
(where Ross will return after leaving the administration) just
released a paper
by Robert Blackwill and Walter B. Slocombe on the many
underappreciated strategic benefits of the alliance with Israel;
here’s
a good summary by Lee Smith of the findings and their
significance given the authors’ worldviews. Blackwill and Slocombe
conclude that “”U.S. national interests’ deserve equal billing
with ‘shared values’ and ‘moral responsibility’ as fundamental
rationales for the bilateral relationship.” If Obama is re-elected,
will there be anyone left in his administration who understands
that?
