To
adapt Winston Churchill: Never in the field of global diplomacy has so much
been given away by so many for so little.
Britain
and France came to Munich in 1938 as military weaklings. The U.S. and its
allies face Iran from a position of overwhelming strength. Britain and France
won time to rearm. The U.S. and its allies have given Iran more time to
stockpile uranium and develop its nuclear infrastructure.
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11.25.2013
President Obama hasn’t made it easy on his Jewish supporters. Conservative
critics—and if polls are right, the majority of Israelis—have always doubted
his intentions toward the Jewish state and suspected him of either tilting
toward the Palestinians or, as veteran diplomat Aaron David Miller memorably
put it, someone who was “not in love with the idea of Israel.” But for the
majority of American Jews who remain loyal Democrats and liberals, Obama was,
at worst, a satisfactory ally of Israel, and, at best, the misunderstood victim
of smears. At times, the president’s penchant for picking fights with the
Netanyahu government over settlements, borders, and even a consensus Jewish
issue like Jerusalem caused some liberal true believers like lawyer and author
Alan Dershowitz to worry about his intentions. But even when the relationship
between Washington and Jerusalem was at its worst during the past five years,
the president’s supporters could point to the issue of paramount importance to
Israel’s security and claim with some justification that he was as solid an
ally as could be asked.
That issue was, of
course, the Iranian nuclear threat, and from the earliest days of his first
presidential campaign, Obama had made it clear that he would never allow them
to gain a nuclear weapon. Though he had also mentioned his desire for a
rapprochement with Iran in that first campaign, the president’s rhetoric on
Iran was consistent and strong. Critics could point to failed efforts at
engagement, his slowness to back tough sanctions, and his reliance on a shaky
diplomatic process as undermining that rhetoric. Yet administration backers
like columnist Jeffrey Goldberg continued to make the case that on this point
there could be no doubting the president’s resolve.
But in the wake of this past weekend’s nuclear agreement with Iran
and the evidence that the president has not only ignored Israel’s concerns
about the deal (as well as those of Saudi Arabia) but appears to want a détente
with Tehran that will upend America’s entire stance on the Middle East, it’s
fair to say that the president has put his backers into a new and even more
difficult test. Liberals may be lining up to take Obama and Secretary of State
Kerry at their word that they have not given up their determination to thwart
Iran’s nuclear ambitions and even accept the claim that the deal makes Israel
safer. But given the administration’s acceptance of Iran’s “right” to enrich
uranium and its apparent belief that it is unrealistic to think that Tehran can
be forced to give up its nuclear program, belief in its bona fides on this
issue can no longer be consideredanything more than a leap of faith.
At this point, American friends of Israel as well as those who understand the
grave threat that Iran poses to U.S. interests and security need to face the
fact that this president has abandoned them.
The disappointment must be especially acute for Goldberg, who has
continued to insist that Obama should be trusted on Iran, even insisting that
he would, if push came to shove, order air strikes or do whatever it took to
make good on his pledge. Thus, to readthe latest Bloomberg column from this respected journalist is to
see what happens when leaders cut their supporters off at the knees. Though the
president has made Goldberg’s previous defenses of his Iran policy look silly,
he is still hoping that the bottom line here won’t be complete betrayal and
therefore tries weakly to rationalize or minimize what has just happened.
Goldberg’s position now
is that demands for Iran to give up its nuclear program are unrealistic. That’s
a new position for him, as he has never doubted that Iran’s goal was a weapon,
a point that he doesn’t abandon even in his latest column when he rightly
reminds us that, “Iran’s leaders are lying” about being only interested in a
peaceful program. But also new is his belief that the crushing sanctions on
Iran that he has been advocating for years would never bring about Iran’s
capitulation. Thus he finds himself lamely accepting the administration’s
excuse that a weak deal that legitimizes Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and does
nothing to roll back the tremendous progress it has achieved on Obama’s watch
is “the least-worst option.”
He justifies this
surrender of principle by assuring himself, if not us, that Iran won’t take
advantage of the opening Obama has given them. An even greater leap is his
suggestion that after investing so much effort in this diplomatic campaign, the
administration “might just have to walk away” from its new relationship with
Iran once it realizes than Hassan Rouhani and the supposed moderates aren’t in
charge in Tehran. This is absurd because, as reports about the secret
diplomatic track that led to this agreement tell us, Obama’s efforts to make
nice with Iran preceded Rouhani’s victory in the regime’s faux presidential
election.
Equally absurd is his
fainthearted attempt to reassure himself that “everything that has happened
over these past months may not amount to anything at all.” Having gambled this
much on appeasement of Iran, the administration isn’t backing off. No matter
what tricks the Iranians pull in the next six months of talks, they know
they’ve got the U.S. hooked and won’t let go. The future of the sanctions
regime that neither Obama nor the Europeans ever really wanted is much more in
question than Iran’s nuclear program. Only a fool would trust Iran’s word on
this issue or believe that once they start to unravel, sanctions could be
re-imposed.
All this puts American
Jewish supporters of Israel like Goldberg in a tough position.
Liberal critics of
Israel, like the J Street lobby that was set up to support Obama’s efforts to
pressure the Jewish state to make concessions to the Palestinians, will
instinctively back the president in any argument with Netanyahu. And it is true
that most Americans are not terribly interested in involving the U.S. in yet
another foreign conflict and may accept Obama and Kerry’s false argument that
the alternative to a weak deal was war.
But mainstream American
Jewish groups, and even most of their moderate and liberal supporters,
understand what happened this past weekend was more than just another spat in a
basically solid relationship. Try as they might, Obama and Kerry will be
hard-pressed to persuade most supporters of Israel that they have the country’s
best interests at heart as they embark on a road whose only main goal is to
normalize relations with Iran.
Though American
supporters of the Jewish state loved his rhetoric during his visit to Israel
last spring, the president’s goal here has been to isolate America’s sole
democratic ally in the Middle East. As Goldberg aptly pointed out, one of
Obama’s prime objectives has been to ensure that Israel cannot act on its own
or even in concert with some of its unlikely Arab allies of convenience against
Iran. Indeed, that appears to be the only American objective that has actually
been achieved with this agreement.
That is why Israel’s
supporters cannot hesitate about backing congressional efforts to increase
sanctions on Iran despite administration resistance. Jewish leaders were lied
to earlier this month when senior officials tried to convince them to back off
on lobbying for sanctions (an effort that met with at least partial success at
first). They also lied to Netanyahu for months while Obama’s envoys were
talking to Iran behind Israel’s back.
Obama has worried Jewish
supporters before, but never has he so ruthlessly undermined their
faith. The choice for the pro-Israel community is clear. It can, like
Goldberg has done, redefine its objectives, and concede defeat on stopping Iran
and/or pretend nothing has happened. Or it can find its collective voice and
speak out against a terrible betrayal that gives the lie to every Obama
statement about stopping Iran. If it chooses the latter, these groups will face
the usual “Israel Lobby” calumnies from anti-Semites and Israel-haters who will
claim they are undermining U.S. interests. But they cannot take counsel of
their fears or be silenced. If they do, they will look back on this moment when
it was still possible to mobilize congressional action against this betrayal
with regret.
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