When it comes to poking a finger in the eye of Barack Obama, John Boehner and Benjamin Netanyahu couldn’t be more on the same page.
Ignoring the well-established role of the executive as the branch of government with the lead role in the conduct of U.S. foreign policy, House Speaker John Boehner invited Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress without consulting or even informing the White House.
Netanyahu accepted, thus thumbing his nose at the chief executive of the one and only nation that lavishes Israel with billions of dollars annually, provides a panoply of the best weapons in the world, and shamelessly protects it diplomatically when that country is called to account at the United Nations and elsewhere for continual outrages against Palestinians and numerous violations of international law.
Something–or rather several things–are wrong with this picture.  First, there is the pattern sheer disrespect. No president in recent times has been the object of some of the brazen acts of disrespect that Barack Obama has had to endure.
Examples abound. Virtually on day one of Obama’s first presidency, the Republican Senate Minority leader declared that making Obama a one-term president would be his principal priority. Sometime later, on a visit to Washington at the invitation of Obama, Netanyahu had the temerity to publicly lecture his host at the White House.
Now, with Boehner’s invitation to address Congress and the Israeli leader’s acceptance, Netanyahu and House Republican leader John Boehner together are doing a most undiplomatic, embarrassing, and possibly unprecedented end run around the administration. This one takes the cake.
Why the disrespect? It’s not as if Obama started and illegal and disastrous war (Bush II, LBJ) or had a Monica moment (Clinton), or committed serious political crimes (Nixon). Herein hangs a tale–for another time.
The second thing wrong in this picture is that it amounts to an alliance between a U.S. political party and the leader of a foreign state to undermine U.S. foreign policy and at the same time score political points at home.
The United States and the other world powers have opted for a diplomatic rather than a bellicose approach to dealing with Iran’s nuclear program (albeit a diplomatic road reinforced by sanctions and explicit threats of military action).
This strategy has basically been working, despite bumps along the road. The leading Western countries, including the United States, have been moving toward reaching a framework agreement with Iran by March 31. They believe it would accomplish the ultimate goal of preventing the development of nuclear weapons by Iran.
There are all kinds of things wrong with this strategy for the bellicose Republican Congress and the pugnacious Israeli PM. So, they are working together to derail it. That’s the main goal of the scheduled Netanyahu appearance.
But there are important secondary potential gains for both parties as well. There are elections in Israel on March 17. It might be useful politically for Netanyahu to be seen by Israeli voters as a brave David defending Israel’s security against the perfidy of Goliath Obama. Congressional Republicans would especially enjoy Netanyahu’s inevitable hard shots at the Obama administration.
Netanyahu ultimately would like to see Obama abandon the diplomatic road and join Israel in a military strike against Iran. This works for Republicans too, who abhor Obama’s multilateral approach and prefer unilateral military action that shows the United States is a law onto itself ready and able to impose its will, all the better if that act of will defies international law.
All this worked so well in Iraq. Republicans seem to want a repeat performance. Or maybe they think they can get it right this time and thus erase the American people’s memory of the Iraq disaster. That memory acts as a check against more future military adventures such as the ones many Republicans would like to undeertake.
This ominous coming together of the hawks–Likudniks and Republicans– is, at another less portentous but nevertheless remarkable level, an alliance of the nasty. Nastiness is a hallmark of today’s Republican party, expressed in mean words and even meaner policies lacking all sense of social justice or even compassion.
Netanyahu is a good fit for these folks. If there were a Nobel Prize for the most obnoxious politician, he would win it. Recall the famous exchange at the 2011 G-20 Summit between Obama and then-French-president Nicholas Sarkozy that was supposed to be private but became very public. Sarkozy: “I cannot bear Netanyahu, he’s a liar.†Obama: “You’re fed up with him, but I have to deal with him even more often than you.â€
This time, Obama is declining to deal with or even meet with Netanyahu if he comes to Washington, officially to preclude influencing the Israeli election. That’s a very convenient excuse. The real problem has not escaped critics in the United States and Israel. Rock-solid Republican elder and former Secretary of State James Baker has spoken out against the invitation as a breach of protocol. Israeli critics are calling Netanyahu’s move a cynical political ploy that may cost Israel dearly in the form of the solid bipartisan support it has long enjoyed.
Thus the seemingly clever gambit by Netanyahu and Boehner may yet backfire politically. That would not be a bad thing. The real danger is that it may work in its main objective, torpedoing the diplomatic approach toward Iran. Already, many members of Congress, including numerous Democrats, are inclined toward a more hard-line sanctions regime and are proposing legislation toward that end.
If the hardliners–the GOP, the Likud–get their wish and the United States at some point strikes military against Iran, there will be terrible consequences. If you think the things Al Qaeda and ISIS are doing are horrible–and they are–you don’t want to see what a state like Iran will do if attacked. The most radical elements in the country will almost surely come to power, with solid support from a furious Iranian public ready to back anyone and anything in order to strike back hard against those they will see as having perpetrated an unprovoked attack on their millenarian civilization and its people.
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