Robert Satloff
Politico
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New rifts in U.S.-Israeli cooperation could mean that time is running out for peaceful resolution of the Iranian nuclear issue.
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America and Israel are in uncharted waters. Just eight months since
President Barack Obama visited Israel on the first foreign trip of his
second term in an attempt to patch things up with Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu, the two close allies are at odds once again -- this
time over a proposed "first step" nuclear agreement with Iran.
Washington and Jerusalem eventually will find a way to move beyond this
titanic clash, but no kiss-and-make-up effort can erase the scars that
will be left behind.
The current crisis is already one of the biggest U.S.-Israel blowups, ever -- and it could get worse before it gets better.
Not since Menachem Begin trashed Ronald Reagan's 1982 peace plan has
Israel so publicly criticized a major U.S. diplomatic initiative. In a
rousing speech in Jerusalem on Nov. 10, Netanyahu even called on leaders
of American Jewry to use their influence to stop what he called a "bad"
Iran deal.
Never has a U.S. secretary of state taken to a podium in an Arab
capital, proclaimed his pro-Israel bona fides and then specifically
cautioned the prime minister of Israel to butt out of ongoing U.S.
diplomatic efforts and save his critique for after a deal is inked. That
is what John Kerry did in a remarkable Nov. 11 news conference in Abu
Dhabi, standing next to the foreign minister of the United Arab
Emirates.
And not in recent memory has the spokesperson for the president of the
United States, knowing that Israel and many of its American friends have
criticized the administration's Iran policy, accused detractors of
leading a "march to war," thereby opening a Pandora's box of hateful
recrimination that will be difficult to close.
Israel's critique of U.S. Iran policy has three key aspects.
First, in terms of strategy, Israel worries that the administration
quietly dropped its longtime insistence that Iran fulfill its U.N.
Security Council obligation to suspend all enrichment activities, and
that an end to enrichment is no longer even a goal of these
negotiations.
Second, in terms of tactics, Israel cheers the administration's
imposition of devastating sanctions on Iran but fears that the
near-agreement in Geneva would have wasted the enormous leverage that
sanctions have created in exchange for a deal that, at most, would cap
Iran's progress without any rollback of Iran's uranium enrichment
capabilities and no commitment to mothball the worrisome Arak plant,
which could provide an alternative plutonium-based path to a nuclear
weapon.
And third, operationally, Israel has complained that it was kept in the
dark on details of the proposed Geneva deal -- what was being offered to
Tehran and what was being demanded of it -- despite commitments from
Washington to keep Jerusalem fully apprised.
These are weighty concerns and serious accusations. They deserve a full
accounting. It is shameful to suggest that anyone who raises these
questions prefers war to diplomacy. That is especially because each of
these charges appears to have merit.
One would be hard-pressed, for example, to find a senior administration
official saying that securing Iran's full implementation of U.N.
Security Council resolutions remains the goal of these negotiations, let
alone an American "red line." Instead, officials have termed the
pursuit of suspension a "maximalist" position and prefer to cite the
president's commitment to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon,
a far looser formulation that could allow Iran a breakout capacity.
Rejecting the Iranians' claim to a "right to enrich," as the
administration apparently did in Geneva, is important, but it is not the
same as demanding that they suspend enrichment.
In terms of the details of the "first step" agreement, administration
officials argue that early sanctions relief for Iran will be marginal
and limited, and that the core oil and banking sanctions will remain in
place until a comprehensive accord is reached. This, however, is a
promise that no administration can guarantee since sanctions are only as
strong as their weakest link. No one can predict how other countries,
some greedy for trade with Iran, will react to the imagery of a "first
step" deal, but it is not fanciful to suggest that the sanctions regime
may begin to erode once the interim agreement is reached. That
underscores the wisdom of demanding the maximum possible concessions in
the "first step" -- i.e., a stoppage at Arak -- and of countering the
image of fraying sanctions by giving Iran tangible evidence that they
will become tighter and more painful.
As for whether Israel was kept in the dark about Geneva, an
inconsistency in Kerry's comments suggests there is something to it.
After all, he and other officials have said that Israeli leaders have
been continually and fully briefed and that Israel's critiques were
unwarranted, since the Israelis didn't know the details of what actually
was on the table in the talks. Both statements cannot be true.
Moreover, it is patently disingenuous to ask Israel or domestic
detractors of a "first step" deal to withhold their criticism until
after the agreement is signed, which is the administration's position,
since there would then be zero chance to affect an outcome already
reached.
It didn't help matters that Washington and Jerusalem had a parallel
crisis of confidence on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process amid the
Iran imbroglio. Kerry -- who has justly earned praise for his
persistence and creativity in pursuing this Sisyphean diplomacy --
inexplicably lost his cool when Israel announced construction approval
for 1,900 new apartments in disputed territory, itself a political
response to Palestinian jubilation at Israel's release from prison of 26
hardened terrorists. One doesn't have to support Israeli settlement
policy to note that 90 percent of those apartments are to be built
either in existing Jewish neighborhoods within Israel's capital, or on
land on the "Israeli side" of the West Bank security barrier that is
likely to end up in Israel's control in any agreement.
Kerry's surprisingly ferocious reaction was to lump all construction
together and denounce it, publicly question Israel's commitment to
peace, rhetorically ask whether Israel prefers a third intifada and
wonder aloud whether Israel will ever get its troops out of the West
Bank -- troops that have worked with Palestinian security forces to
fight terrorism and prevent the spread of Hamas influence. If the Obama
administration wanted to raise the blood pressure of even the least
paranoid Israelis, the combination of the rush to a deal in Geneva and
an attack on Israel's peacemaking credentials was a sure way to do it.
For its part, Israel has sent Washington some mixed signals of its own,
especially on the question of urgency in nuclear talks. In recent
months, Israelis kept up a steady drumbeat about the Arak plutonium
reactor, continually reminding Americans than once it goes "hot," the
radiation hazard will make it immune to military attack. Their message
was: "Time is not on our side." This Israeli reasoning provided the
administration a powerful rationale (some would say "excuse") for a
"first step" deal -- if such a deal included a shutdown of Arak. Since
the Geneva talks, however, Israelis have told a different story, i.e.,
that "time is on our side." America has much more leverage than it
recognizes, Israelis have said, because the Iranians are desperate to
gain relief from the devastating impact of sanctions. Again, both
arguments -- time is and time isn't on our side -- can't be true.
It is clear that the current crisis could have been avoided. The question now is whether it can be remedied.
As of this writing, it appears that the administration opposes the
obvious compromise solution on sanctions -- approval now of additional
sanctions that would only go into effect if no "first step" deal is
reached or when a definitive deadline on negotiating a comprehensive
arrangement expires. It also would be useful for the administration to
put in place new mechanisms for real-time consultation with Israel so
there is no chance even swiftly moving developments will surprise the
Israelis. And because the White House's canard about its warmongering
critics has had the effect of tarnishing the credibility of America's
military threat against Iran, already weakened by the Syria chemical
weapons episode, the administration needs to take urgent steps, both on
its own and with regional allies, to make the threat more believable.
More than anything, repairing the torn fabric of U.S.-Israel relations
-- including the fundamental question of whether the world should allow
Iran any independent enrichment capacity -- will require a renewed
meeting of the minds between Obama and Netanyahu. As the president said
in Jerusalem last March, "Because of the cooperation between our
governments, we know that there remains time to pursue a diplomatic
resolution [of the Iran nuclear problem]." If his formula is accurate,
the absence of cooperation means that time really might be running out.
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Robert Satloff is executive director of The Washington Institute.
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