U.S., Israel Face Fork in the Road
Typically a meeting between an Israeli Prime Minister and an American President would not generate such voluminous commentary as the one that kicked off this week between Benjamin Netanyahu and Barack Obama. But the punditry is anchored in a very real issue: after decades of fruitful partnership, American and Israeli interests are diverging.
For decades, American support for Israel has rested on three pillars: political affinity, religious sympathy, and strategic logic. Each pillar represented a clear convergence of interests. Both nations are democracies. Both nations have a deep tradition of religious faith rooted in Biblical traditions. And during the Cold War, both nations came to see the merits in exerting strong military power over the Middle East. Two of those three pillars remain as strong as ever, but the third, the strategic, shows signs of stress.
The strategic pillar has been creaking ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union eliminated the U.S. need for powerful proxies. It groaned still further as the U.S. discovered its vulnerability to transnational terrorism – a terrorism nurtured, if only in part, by America’s steadfast support of Israel in its territorial dispute with the Palestinians. Real cracks, however, are developing over the viability of the Arab-Israeli peace process and the threat posed by Iran.
In both cases, Israel and the U.S. are faced with different security concerns. Yet, because of the close nature of the alliance, it is difficult for either party to take the actions it deems necessary to defend its interests. In the case of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, steps taken to benefit America’s position in the Middle East could well imperil Israeli security. On Iran, the opposite is true – actions taken to address Israel’s security could well endanger America.
Take the Israeli-Palestinian front. The Obama administration has been quite clear on its position. “In the next four years there is going to be a permanent status arrangement between Israel and the Palestinians on the basis of two states for two peoples, and it doesn't matter to us at all who is prime minister.” Such were the words of the President’s Chief of Staff Rham Emanuel as reported by Shimon Shiffer.
From the U.S. perspective, it’s easy to see why so many officials have tilted at the peace process windmill. What better way to calm the troubled waters of the Middle East than by bringing the region’s most turbulent spot under control? A peaceful settlement would soothe Arab resentment at the U.S., deny radical movements their most potent rallying point, and placate America’s regional allies, like Jordan, who complain bitterly and vocally about the lack of peace.
While it’s broadly acknowledged that “two states for two peoples” is the only way the conflict can justly end, it’s also clear that America wants it more than the Israeli leadership does. Benjamin Netanyahu has been a vocal opponent of ceding territory to the Palestinians. “It makes no sense,” he has said, to address the key territorial issues in the dispute until there is an “economic peace" that strengthens Palestinian moderates. Settlement construction continues apace.
It’s not hard to understand Israel’s reluctance. After all, as veteran Mideast negotiator Aaron David Miller wrote recently in the American Interest, the moment isn’t ripe for a comprehensive settlement with the Palestinians. They’re weak and divided. Fatah President Mahmoud Abbas doesn’t have the authority (let alone the guns) to ensure a settlement will hold with the Palestinians in Gaza. Given the flow of arms and weaponry into Gaza prior to the war in 2008, why would the Israelis want to hand over border control to a newly sovereign Palestinian state? Why would the Palestinian factions that reject peace not use the mechanisms of a state to rearm to wage war anew, as the Palestinian Authority under Yasser Arafat did after the 1993 Oslo Accords?
The spinning centrifuges in Iran are arguably driving deeper wedges into the strategic pillar. While both the U.S. and Israel vociferously oppose Iran’s possession of a nuclear bomb, Israel has made no secret that it views the Iranian nuclear program as an “existential threat.” Even if one discounts the genocidal rhetoric issuing forth from Tehran as mere bluster, a nuclear Iran could deal a grievous blow to the Jewish state without actually lobbing a nuclear weapon. Secured by a nuclear bomb, Iran could step up conventional military support for Hamas and Hezbollah. A grim preview of the havoc such support could wreak was on display during Israel’s war in Lebanon in 2006, when Hezbollah fighters fired sophisticated anti-tank weapons at Israeli ground forces. They even struck an Israeli ship with a cruise missile.
It’s no surprise then that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert reportedly asked the Bush administration in May 2008 for permission to bomb Iran.
Nor is it a surprise that the President declined to support such a move. An Israeli attack on Iran could trigger a cascade of repercussions that could seriously damage American regional interests. The Iranians have already made clear that any Israeli assault would be met with attacks against America. As Secretary of Defense Roberts Gates noted during his confirmation hearing, Iran can harm not just American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, but American civilians around the world. While Iran’s proxies might not be able to completely destabilize Iraq or Afghanistan, they could certainly make the tough slog toward stability even tougher. To say nothing of Iran’s potential for terrorism directed at American civilian targets.
From the U.S. perspective, a nuclear-armed Iran is a conventional threat, not an existential one. A nuclear Iran could spark a regional nuclear arms race and potentially threatens America’s ability to influence events in the Middle East. But a nuclear Iran could not fundamentally threaten the U.S. homeland or the American way of life. Unless the Iranians discover a way to eat enriched Uranium, they’ll still have to sell oil to survive, which means America’s overriding interest in the region would remain secure. A nuclear Iran may even yield an unexpected upside. If the Mullahs attempt to aggressively extend their Shiite revolution into other countries in the region, it will generate no small amount of ill will from Sunni radicals such as al Qaeda, who harbor their own hegemonic ambitions and detest what they view as Shiite apostasy.
These evident strains on the strategic pillar are exacerbated by the fact that there is no clear way to ease them. The Obama administration’s diplomacy may produce a landmark twofer – peacefully curtailing Iran’s nuclear program while settling the Arab-Israeli dispute. But given the tight timelines, it probably won’t. Then, either Israel will have to accept greater insecurity and concede the creation of a Palestinian state and a nuclear Iran, or the U.S. will have to live with the dangers of Iranian reprisals and continued Arab resentment over the failure to secure the Palestinians their due. In any event, both nations are already exerting pressures (both subtle and overt) to bring the other into alignment with its own interests.
It’s often said – by admirers as much as detractors – that the Obama administration marks a return to realism in the conduct of American foreign policy. There seems to be no greater test to such a sentiment than the long-standing alliance with Israel, which sits at the intersection of American values and interests. While America’s heart and soul continue to strongly affirm the partnership, America’s head is increasingly questioning the strategic merits. The coming months will reveal a lot about where President Obama draws his guidance.
