The Obama-Netanyahu meeting seems to have been a chilly affair:
There was a conspicuous lack of praise for his 59-year-old Israeli visitor, whom he said had the "benefit of having served" previously as prime minister and for having "both youth and wisdom".
The meeting overran to two hours, suggesting that the two sides had struggled to find a way of presenting a unified face to the watching world.
It's in the grand tradition of delusional leaders to inflict ever goofier "linkage" on the Zionist Entity: Only solve the Palestinian problem and [INSERT CRISIS DU JOUR HERE] will go away! This time round the Israelis are being told that another go-round of the ol' "two-state solution" two-step will so entrance Iran that the nuke program will be mothballed.
This makes even less sense than the previously confident "linkage" that a Palestinian state would eventually make al-Qaeda beat their suicide bombs into plowshares. Iran has no interest in the Palestinian "peace process." The lack-of-peace process has enabled its proxies to annex Gaza and a big chunk of Lebanon. The only relevant linkage here is that Teheran's destabilization of the Palestinian Authority, Lebanon and beyond is a good indicator of where the broader region will head once the mullahs have gone nuclear.
It's interesting to watch how smoothly and painlessly first Europe and now Washington have accepted the inevitability of a nuclear Iran. Alas, it's a little harder to digest not only for Israel but also for the Sunni Arab despots. Yet it seems to be only the hapless Jews the administration is pressuring. An Iranian nuclear regional hegemon will destabilize everything, from Egypt to the Gulf monarchies. And those "pro-American" states that have no particular desire to live under Teheran's umbrella will observe that Washington let it happen, reach their own conclusions about the so-called superpower, and make their dispositions accordingly.
Strange to see Obama lecturing Netanyahu about the iniquity of the "settlements": In a hundred days, he seems to have mastered perfectly the exquisite European technique of having attitudes rather than policies.
Summit meetings are elaborate dances that provide clues to the actual statecraft being hammered out in the trenches. They allow the principals to posture for their constituents, and try on their new "clothes" on the world stage. Nothing is really accomplished, unless you count all the interpreting and parsing and analysis of body language that goes on in that parallel universe - the media.
ReplyDeleteOne trial balloon, that Israel should give up the occupied land and recognize Palestine, has been floated many times over the past decades. Whether President Obama can keep it aloft will be a major test of his political ability.
For the sake of Israel, and by extension, the rest of us, I hope he is successful.