— An unmistakable sense of unease has been growing in capitals around the world as the U.S. government from afar looks increasingly befuddled — shirking from a military confrontation in Syria, stymied at home by a gridlocked Congress and in danger of defaulting on sovereign debt, which could plunge the world’s financial system into chaos.
While each of the factors may be unrelated to the direct exercise of U.S. foreign policy, taken together they give some allies the sense that Washington is not as firm as it used to be in its resolve and its financial capacity, providing an opening for China or Russia to fill the void, an Asian foreign minister told a group of journalists in New York this week.
Concerns will only deepen now that President Barack Obama canceled travel this weekend to the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum in Bali and the East Asia Summit in Brunei. He pulled out of the gatherings to stay home to deal with the government shutdown and looming fears that Congress will block an increase in U.S. borrowing power, a move that could lead to a U.S. default.
The U.S. is still a pillar of defense for places in Asia like Taiwan and South Korea, providing a vital security umbrella against China. It also still has strong allies in the Middle East, including Israel and the Gulf Arab states arrayed against al-Qaida and Iran.
But in interviews with academics, government leaders and diplomats, faith that the U.S. will always be there is fraying more than a little.
“The paralysis of the American government, where a rump in Congress is holding the whole place to ransom, doesn’t really jibe with the notion of the United States as a global leader,” said Michael McKinley, an expert on global relations at the Australian National University.
The political turbulence in Washington and potential economic bombshells still to come over the U.S. government shutdown and a possible debt default this month have sent shivers through Europe. The head of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, worried about the continent’s rebound from the 2008 economic downturn.
“We view this recovery as weak, as fragile, as uneven,” Draghi said at a news conference.
Germany’s influential newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung bemoaned the U.S. political chaos.
“At the moment, Washington is fighting over the budget and nobody knows if the country will still be solvent in three weeks. What is clear, though, is that America is already politically bankrupt,” it said.
Obama finds himself at the nexus of a government in chaos at home and a wave of foreign policy challenges.
He has been battered by the upheaval in the Middle East from the Arab Spring revolts after managing to extricate the U.S. from its long, brutal and largely failed attempt to establish democracy in Iraq. He is also drawing down U.S. forces from a more than decade-long war in Afghanistan with no real victory in sight. He leads a country whose people have no interest in taking any more military action abroad.
As Europe worries about economics, Asian allies watch in some confusion about what the U.S. is up to with its promise to rebalance military forces and diplomacy in the face of an increasingly robust China.
Global concerns about U.S. policy came to a head with Obama’s handling of the civil war in Syria and the alleged use of chemical weapons by the regime of President Bashar Assad. But, in fact, the worries go far deeper.
“I think there are a lot of broader concerns about the United States. They aren’t triggered simply by Syria. The reaction the United States had from the start to events in Egypt created a great deal of concern among the Gulf and the Arab states,” said Anthony Cordesman, a military affairs specialist at the Center for International Studies.
Kings and princes throughout the Persian Gulf were deeply unsettled when Washington turned its back on Egypt’s long-time dictator and U.S. ally Hosni Mubarak during the 2011 uprising in the largest Arab country.
Now, Arab allies in the Gulf voice dismay over the rapid policy redirection from Obama over Syria, where rebel factions have critical money and weapons channels from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Gulf states. It has stirred a rare public dispute with Washington, whose differences with Gulf allies are often worked out behind closed doors. Last month, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal warned that the renewed emphasis on diplomacy with Assad would allow the Syrian president to “impose more killing.”
After saying Assad must be removed from power and then threatening military strikes over the regime’s alleged chemical weapons attack, the U.S. is now working with Russia and the U.N. to collect and destroy Damascus’ chemical weapons stockpile. That assures Assad will remain in power for now and perhaps the long term.
Danny Yatom, a former director of Israel’s Mossad intelligence service, said the U.S. handling of the Syrian crisis and its decision not to attack after declaring red lines on chemical weapons has hurt Washington’s credibility.
“I think in the eyes of the Syrians and the Iranians, and the rivals of the United States, it was a signal of weakness, and credibility was deteriorated,” he said.
The Syrian rebels, who were promised U.S. arms, say they feel deserted by the Americans, adding that they have lost faith and respect for Obama.
The White House contends that its threat of a military strike against Assad was what caused the regime to change course and agree to plan reached by Moscow and Washington to hand its chemical weapons over to international inspectors for destruction. That’s a far better outcome than resorting to military action, Obama administration officials insist.
Gulf rulers also have grown suddenly uneasy over the U.S. outreach to their regional rival Iran.
Bahrain Foreign Minister Sheik Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa said Gulf states “must be in the picture” on any attempts by the U.S. and Iran to open sustained dialogue or reach settlement over Tehran’s nuclear program. He was quoted Tuesday by the London-based Al Hayat newspaper as saying Secretary of State John Kerry has promised to consult with his Gulf “friends” on any significant policy shifts over Iran — a message that suggested Gulf states are worried about being left on the sidelines in potentially history-shaping developments in their region.
In response to the new U.S. opening to Iran to deal with its suspected nuclear weapons program, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the U.N. General Assembly that his country remained ready to act alone to prevent Tehran from building a bomb. He indicated a willingness to allow some time for further diplomacy but not much. And he excoriated new Iranian President Hassan Rouhani as a “wolf in sheep’s clothing.”
Kerry defended the engagement effort, saying the U.S. would not be played for “suckers” by Iran. Tehran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful energy production, while the U.S. and other countries suspect it is aimed at achieving atomic weapons capability.
McKinley, the Australian expert, said Syria and the U.S. budget crisis have shaken Australians’ faith in their alliance with Washington.
“It means that those who rely on the alliance as the cornerstone of all Australian foreign policy and particularly security policy are less certain — it’s created an element of uncertainty in their calculations,” he said.
Running against the tide of concern, leaders in the Philippines are banking on its most important ally to protect it from China’s assertive claims in the South China Sea. Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin said Manila still views the U.S. as a dependable ally despite the many challenges it is facing.
“We should understand that all nations face some kind of problems, but in terms of our relationship with the United States, she continues to be there when we need her,” Gazmin said.
“There’s no change in our feelings,” he said. “Our strategic relationship with the U.S. continues to be healthy. They remain a reliable ally.”
But as Cordesman said, “The rhetoric of diplomacy is just wonderful but it almost never describes the reality.”
That reality worldwide, he said, “is a real concern about where is the U.S. going. There is a question of trust. And I think there is an increasing feeling that the United States is pulling back, and its internal politics are more isolationist so that they can’t necessarily trust what U.S. officials say, even if the officials mean it.”
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EDITOR’S NOTE — Steven R. Hurst, The Associated Press’ international political writer in Washington, has covered foreign affairs for 35 years, including extended assignments in Russia and the Middle East.
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AP writers Brian Murphy in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Robert H. Reid in Berlin, Hrvoje Hranjski in Manila, Gregory Katz in London, Josef Federman in Jerusalem, Rod McGuirk in Canberra, Australia, and Sarah DiLorenzo and David McHugh in Paris contributed to this report.
US President Barack Obama speaking to his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rouhani, on Friday Sept. 27, marking the first time the two countries’ leaders engaged each other since 1979. (photo credit: Pete Souza via White House Twitter page)
Most leaders in the Arab world have been cautious, some to an extreme, when discussing the recent thaw in US-Iran relations.
Some have even appeared to fall in line with Israel’s worried position on the issue. After all, certain countries such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, and the UAE, have good reason to lack faith in the credibility of Tehran’s new media-based outreach strategy.
Iran’s potential nuclear capabilities are not the only threat these Arab leaders face. The persistent efforts made by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards to induce instability among the Shiite populations in their countries are cause for constant concern.
At this point, though, Arab states have shown a preference not to directly condemn Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, or his new “clear-eyed” American negotiating partner President Barack Obama.
In an interview this week for the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper, the foreign minister of Bahrain, Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed bin Mohammad Al Khalifa, said that US Secretary of State John Kerry assured the Gulf Cooperation Council that the US would not make a single move in the region without first consulting with its local allies.
He said that the only difference in Iran so far is the type of speeches and declarations being made, but that Bahrain would welcome any real actions and stability that may stem from those declarations.
The leaders of the majority of the Sunni Arab countries seem willing to wait for October 15th — the date of the next scheduled meeting between Iran and the P5+1 in Geneva — to decide whether the Iranians are just trying to buy time once again, or if they really intend to present a proposal that will pave the way toward an agreement with the international community regarding their nuclear program.
Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation — one of the most important organizations in the Muslim world — said that it is still too soon to be optimistic about a solution to the Iranian nuclear crisis.
Ihsanoglu attended the UN General Assembly in New York, where he also criticized the international community and particularly the Obama administration over Syria — specifically for focusing solely on the agreement between Russia and the US, dealing with the Assad regime’s chemical weapons, rather than the ongoing bloody civil war there.
And indeed, a special team arrived in Syria this week to supervise the process as the regime relinquishes its chemical weapons, while indiscriminate murder continues undisturbed throughout the country, and with little comment from the international community.
According to the latest reports from Syria, the death toll has exceeded 115,000.
Infighting among the various factions within the opposition threatens to weaken the military capabilities of the Free Syrian Army and other opponents of Assad.
Whereas last month saw vicious battles between Al-Qaeda supporters and several “battalions” affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, particularly in the Azaz region near the Turkish border, this week there was an escalation in the violence between the two groups affiliated with al-Qaeda: the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) and the Al-Nusra Front. The latter recently joined forces with nine other Islamist groups and signed a collaboration agreement to work together to establish a Muslim state in Syria.
A key objective of the agreement was to isolate ISIS, though so far ISIS combatants, most of whom arrived from Iraq and other countries, seem unconcerned by the merger. ISIS fighters have violated the cease fire in Azaz, waged battles against the Free Syrian Army there (with a death toll of 20 people on both sides) and in Raqqah, and looted the headquarters of other opposition groups.
According to soldiers from the more moderate opposition groups, ISIS has taken over regions that have already been liberated from the Assad regime, exploiting the sparse presence of the Free Syrian Army, as its soldiers are engaged in battles elsewhere.
Opposition soldiers claim that ISIS uses terror and intimidation to force their ideology on the residents of the areas that they conquer.
One of the battalions in the Free Syrian Army proclaimed this week that ISIS is actually working for Assad. The battalion, known as Northern Storm, wrote on its Facebook page that “just as we transformed Azaz into a burial ground for Bashar Assad’s tanks and soldiers, we will transform it into a burial ground for ISIS soldiers as well.”
ISIS does not currently appear to aspire to conquer all of Syria, at least not in the near future. But they do aspire to expand the territory under their control in order to maximize their access to food stores and military equipment. This would explain why the majority of their battles are held near the Iraqi and Turkish borders.
In addition, the organization has been working to establish a new education system in the “liberated areas” of Syria to replace the system that has, in effect, been shut down. While some other groups have already succeeded in restoring studies, and begun to teach English and math to children and teens (though not history or geography, as all of the textbooks on these subjects were written by Assad’s regime and their content perpetuates his leadership), the ISIS schools teach only Sharia and Islam.
ISIS has also taken responsibility this week for 12 car bombs that exploded in Bagdad, killing 25 people — part of the war between the Sunnis and the Shiites in Iraq. The intra-Islamic conflict is presumably far from over.
Question: Mr. President, thank you so much for sitting down with us today.
THE PRESIDENT: Great to be with you.
Q: There is a lot that I want to ask you about the government shutdown and foreign policy, but I wanted to start with health care. The signature element of your health care law went online this week, and the interest seems to have really exceeded expectations, but there were some serious glitches with the online systems. And our reporting shows that the number of people who actually managed to sign up for insurance in the states using the federal system was in the single digits. How many people have actually signed up for insurance this week?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I don’t have the numbers yet. What we know is that, as you indicated, the interest way exceeded expectations and that’s the good news. It shows that people really need and want affordable health care. And the product is a really good one. It turns out that choice and competition work. So what’s happened is you’ve got private insurers who have bid to get into this system to offer affordable health care at significantly lower prices than anybody could buy in the individual market, because basically they’re now part of a big group.
And it is true that what’s happened is the website got overwhelmed by the volume. And folks are working around the clock and have been systematically reducing the wait times, but we are confident that over the course of the six months — because it’s important to remember people have six months to sign up — that we are going to probably exceed what anybody expected in terms of the amount of interest that people have.
Q: Do you have a message for those Americans who tried to sign up this week and gave up in frustration?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, they definitely shouldn’t give up. Typically, what happens is when people are shopping for insurance, they visit a site or make phone calls or look at brochures five, six, seven times before they make a final decision. And they’re not going to have to pay premiums until December — the insurance doesn’t start until January. So they’ll have plenty of time.
And my message to them would be, each day the wait times are reduced. Each day, more and more people are signing up, and the product will save you money. People will save hundreds of dollars — in some cases, thousands of dollars — as a consequence of being able to get health insurance that is priced for them and gives them the choices that they need.
So the best example we have is actually Massachusetts, where they have a similar program. And what happened there is that the actual sign-up rate started fairly slowly, partly because people didn’t want to pay three or four months ahead of when they would get insurance. But the interest, their ability to window shop, identify what’s going to work for them, what suits their pocketbook, what kinds of tax credits they can get — that’s already happening. And what we know is that for at least 60 percent of the people who visit that site, they’re going to be able to get good-quality health insurance for less than their cellphone or cable bill. And that is something that is — a lot of people, understandably, recognize is going to give them the kind of security they haven’t had before.
Q: The health care law is obviously very central to the government shutdown that’s underway right now. Are you prepared — given that you’re not going to make concessions on your health care law, as you’ve said repeatedly, are you prepared to have the government stay shutdown up until the nation hits its debt ceiling in mid-October?
THE PRESIDENT: There’s no reason that that should happen, Julie. We can vote to open the government today. We know that there are enough members in the House of Representatives — Democrats and Republicans — who are prepared to vote to reopen the government today. The only thing that is keeping that from happening is Speaker Boehner has made a decision that he is going to hold out to see if he can get additional concessions from us.
And what I’ve said to him is we are happy to negotiate on anything. We are happy to talk about the health care law, we’re happy to talk about the budget, we’re happy to talk about deficit reduction, we’re happy to talk about investments. But what we can’t do is keep engaging in this sort of brinksmanship where a small faction of the Republican Party ends up forcing them into brinksmanship to see if they can somehow get more from negotiations by threatening to shut down the government or threatening America not paying its bills.
Q: But do you now see those two situations — the government shutdown and the debt ceiling — now merging together, given how close we are to the mid-October deadline, as Secretary Lew has said?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, keep in mind, America has never not paid its bills. And I’ve said repeatedly that that’s not something anybody should be threatening — the potential default of the United States, where we are essentially deadbeats. That’s never happened.
Q: But does that mean that if we get to the point where we’re right before October 17th, or whatever the day ends up being, that you would actually use some of these options that some of your allies say are available to you, like the 14th Amendment, to prevent a default?
THE PRESIDENT: Julie, I have said before, there is one way to make sure that America pays its bills, and that’s for Congress to authorize the Secretary of the Treasury, Jack Lew, to pay bills that they have already accrued.
Look, I think it’s very important, because the name of this is the debt ceiling and so when people hear that, they automatically think, well, that must mean that somehow this is authorizing more spending and more debt for the United States. That’s not what this is. What this is, is the ability for the United States government to pay for things that Congress has already committed us to paying for. And as a result, this has been a routine vote. It has happened more than 40 times since Ronald Reagan was President.
Never before has a party threatened to not pay our bills except for 2011 — the last time that Speaker Boehner and some of the same people in the House of Representatives thought that it might give them more leverage in negotiations. And we can’t establish a pattern where one faction of one party that controls one chamber in one branch of government can basically hold its breath and say, unless we get 100 percent of our way, then we’re going to let the entire economy collapse, the entire economy shut down.
So what I’ve said to them is this: Make sure that the United States government pays its bills. That’s not negotiable. That’s what families all around the country do. If I buy a car and I decide not to pay my car note one month, I’m not saving money — I’m just a deadbeat. Well, this is the exact same situation.
Q: But if they don’t, if they get up to this deadline and they are not willing to pass this clean debt ceiling that you’re asking them to do, would you be willing to take other action to prevent default?
THE PRESIDENT: I don’t expect to get there. There were at least some quotes yesterday that Speaker Boehner is willing to make sure that we don’t default. And just as is true with the government shutdown, there are enough votes in the House of Representatives to make sure that the government reopens today. And I’m pretty willing to bet that there are enough votes in the House of Representatives right now to make sure that the United States doesn’t end up being a deadbeat. The only thing that’s preventing that from happening is Speaker Boehner calling the vote.
And I think most Americans, when they think about how our government is supposed to work, they say to themselves, each member of Congress has their conscience, they’re supposed to represent their constituents back home. And if, in fact, there’s a majority of the members of the House of Representatives who are prepared to move forward so that families can get back to work, so that people who are — whether it’s veterans or children or small businesses who are getting services from the federal government can start getting those services again — I think most people would say, if there are votes to do it, let’s go ahead and do it.
And then we’ve got a whole bunch of things that we’ve got to have a serious conversation about. We should be having a conversation not just about debt and deficits; we should be also having a conversation about how are we making sure that young people are getting a great education; how do we rebuild our infrastructure and put people back to work; how are we going to make sure that we fix a broken immigration system; how are we going to do all the things that we need to grow the economy and make sure that we are building a strong middle class and providing ladders for opportunity for people to get into the middle class if they’re willing to work hard.
Q: Well, the tea party has really stood in the way of a lot of those objectives that you’re seeking. Do you think the tea party has been good or bad for America?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I don’t want to paint anybody with a broad brush. And I think one of the great things about our democracy is, is that we’ve always had a whole bunch of different regional attitudes and philosophies about government and ideologies, and the tea party is just the latest expression of probably some very real fears and anxieties on the part of certain Americans. And I get that. So there’s nothing objectionable to having strong principled positions on issues, even if I completely disagree with many of their positions.
But there are certain rules to make sure that everybody is participating, everybody is respected, the process moves forward in an orderly way, and we don’t create chaos. So my concern has less to do with the tea party, per se, or the particular positions that they take on issues, but rather it’s this idea that if they don’t get 100 percent of their way, they’ll shut down the government or they’ll threaten economic chaos. That has to stop.
Q: Some of these tea party senators are in their first term, and you were a first-term senator who came in and had a lot of public attention around you, you didn’t sort of take the traditional route, you weren’t a backbencher. I’m wondering if you feel like you set a precedent for people like Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul to come in, in their first term, and really take a high-profile role in the Senate?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, if you recall, when I came into the Senate, my attitude was I should just keep a pretty low profile in the Senate and just do the work.
Q: The media certainly didn’t let you do that.
THE PRESIDENT: The media may not have, but I didn’t go around courting the media, and I certainly didn’t go around trying to shut down the government. And so I recognize that in today’s media age, being controversial, taking controversial positions, rallying the most extreme parts of your base — whether it’s left or right — is a lot of times the fastest way to get attention or raise money, but it’s not good for government. It’s not good for the people we’re supposed to be serving.
And one thing I just have to remind members of Congress about is these are real folks that are being impacted. I’ve got staff here who may be expecting their first child, and right now they’re not sure about whether or not they’re going to be able to meet expenses. I’ve got young staff who, if they have a car accident, they may have a thousand dollar premium on their car insurance — or deductible on their car insurance, and if they don’t get a paycheck, they may be broke. They will not be able to pay the bills.
I’m getting letters every single day from farmers who have been waiting to buy some land and now they may not get a loan, and from small businesses. We give a billion dollars’ worth of small business loans every single month — those loans are not being processed.
So this is something that is concretely affecting real people. There is no reason government should be shut down. I think it’s very important for the public to understand that a bill passed the Senate — Democratically-controlled Senate — that set budget levels at the levels that Republicans preferred — not Democrats.
I mean, essentially what’s happened here is Democrats are saying they are prepared to pass a Republican budget for two months while negotiations continue. We just can’t have a whole bunch of other extraneous stuff in it, and the obsession with the Affordable Care Act, with Obamacare, has to stop; that that is not something that should be a price for keeping the government open.
Q: I want to switch to foreign policy. You’ve swapped letters with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, you’ve talked to him on the phone now, you’ve had an opportunity to listen to him give several speeches and interviews. I know you’ve said he needs to back up these words with actions, but I’m wondering if you just have a gut feeling at this point on whether he really represents a different type of Iranian leadership.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, here’s what we know: He was not necessarily the preferred candidate of some of the ruling clerics when he initially threw his hat into the ring. He won pretty decisively.
So what we know is, is that in the Iranian population at least, there is a genuine interest in moving in a new direction. Their economy has been crippled by international sanctions that were put in place because Iran had not been following international guidelines, and had behaved in ways that made a lot of people feel they were pursuing a nuclear weapon.
I think Rouhani has staked his position on the idea that he can improve relations with the rest of the world. And so far, he’s been saying a lot of the right things. And the question now is, can he follow through? The way the Iranian system works, he’s not the only decision maker — he’s not even the ultimate decision maker.
But if in fact he is able to present a credible plan that says Iran is pursuing peaceful nuclear energy but we’re not pursuing nuclear weapons, and we are willing to be part of a internationally verified structure so that all other countries in the world know they are not pursuing nuclear weapons, then, in fact, they can improve relations, improve their economy. And we should test that.
Q: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said this week that Iran is about six months away from being able to produce a nuclear weapon. You said in March, before your trip to Israel, that you thought Iran was a year or more away. What’s the U.S. intelligence assessment at this point on that timetable?
THE PRESIDENT: Our assessment continues to be a year or more away. And in fact, actually, our estimate is probably more conservative than the estimates of Israeli intelligence services.
So we share a lot of intelligence with Israelis. I think Prime Minister Netanyahu understandably is very skeptical about Iran, given the threats that they’ve made repeatedly against Israel, given the aid that they’ve given to organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas that have fired rockets into Israel. If I were the Prime Minister of Israel, I would be very wary as well of any kind of talk from the Iranians.
But what I’ve said to Prime Minister Netanyahu is that the entire point of us setting up sanctions and putting pressure on the Iranian economy was to bring them to the table in a serious way to see if we can resolve this issue diplomatically. And we’ve got to test that. We’re not going to take a bad deal. We are going to make sure that we verify any agreement that we might strike.
But it is very much in not only the United States’ interest but also Israel’s interest to see if we can resolve this without some sort of military conflict. And so we now have the time to have those serious conversations, and we’ll be able to measure how serious the Iranians are.
Q: You have a decision coming up on troop levels in Afghanistan. Have you made a decision yet on how many U.S. troops you’d like to see in Afghanistan after 2014? And are you comfortable with a scenario that would leave no American troops there after the end of next year?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, first of all, I’m glad you brought this up, because given what’s been happening in Syria and Egypt and Iran, I think sometimes we haven’t seen enough reminders in the news that we still have tens of thousands of American troops on mission in Afghanistan, making enormous sacrifices. And there are still folks who are getting killed and getting hurt, and doing incredibly courageous work.
We are going to end combat operations in Afghanistan at the end of 2014. What I’ve said is that if, in fact, the Afghan government is interested and willing to work with us in a cooperative way that protects our troops and other coalition partners, we would consider a train-and-advise mission that would extend beyond 2014 — greatly reduced from what we’re doing now.
We have not yet signed what’s called a bilateral security agreement that would make sure that, if in fact American troops were on Afghan soil, that they were fully protected. And we still have some time to discuss this — we’re in discussions with the Afghan government and President Karzai. But no matter what, by the end of next year, we’ll be finished with combat operations.
Q: Are you comfortable, though, with this — what has become known as the “zero option” at the end of 2014?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think that it is in both the interest of the Afghans and the United States that we are in a position to continue to help their military consolidate security in their country. We have helped them ramp up so that they now have a fighting force that is increasingly effective, increasingly well-equipped. My preference would be that they can manage security on their own, and that we don’t see a return of al Qaida or any other terrorist organization operating on Afghan soil. And they’re getting there; they’re not quite there yet.
So if in fact we can get an agreement that makes sure that U.S. troops are protected, makes sure that we can operate in a way that is good for our national security, then I’ll certainly consider that. If we can’t, we will continue to make sure that all the gains we’ve made in going after al Qaida we accomplish, even if we don’t have any US military on Afghan soil.
Q: If I could just ask you one last question on something that’s not politically related, but is getting a lot of attention in Washington — the name of the Washington Redskins football team. There is a lot of people who say it’s time to change the name of that team, considering that it’s insulting to many Native Americans. What’s your position on that?
THE PRESIDENT: You know, Julie, obviously, people get pretty attached to team names, mascots. I don’t think there are any Redskins fans that mean offense. I’ve got to say that if I were the owner of the team and I knew that there was a name of my team — even if it had a storied history — that was offending a sizeable group of people, I’d think about changing it.
But I don’t want to detract from the wonderful Redskins fans that are here. They love their team, and rightly so — even though they’ve been having a pretty tough time this year. But I think — all these mascots and team names related to Native Americans, Native Americans feel pretty strongly about it. And I don’t know whether our attachment to a particular name should override the real, legitimate concerns that people have about these things.
But I don’t have — I don’t have a stake in this in the sense that I’m not a part owner of any football team. Maybe after I leave this –
Q: Maybe after the presidency.
THE PRESIDENT: Maybe after I leave the presidency. (Laughter.) I think it would be a lot of fun. Although, I’d probably play — I’d probably look at a basketball team before I looked at a football team. I know more about basketball than I do about football.
Q: Get the Bulls ready.
THE PRESIDENT: Absolutely. I think they’re going to be good this year.
Q: Thank you very much for sitting down with us today. I appreciate it.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you so much. Great to talk to you, Julie.
Obama, in an interview with The Associated Press, expressed optimism about the blossoming diplomacy between his administration and Iran’s new president. (Snapshot of the AP interview aired on Al Arabiya)
The Associated Press, Washington
President Barack Obama disclosed that U.S. intelligence agencies believe Iran continues to be a year or more away from building a nuclear weapon, an assessment that is at odds with Israel, which contends Tehran is on a faster course toward a bomb.
Obama, in an interview with The Associated Press, expressed optimism about the blossoming diplomacy between his administration and Iran’s new president, but said the U.S. would not accept a “bad deal” on the Islamic republic’s nuclear program.
The president spoke to the AP on Friday.
Obama has launched a diplomatic outreach to Iran, aimed at resolving the dispute over Tehran’s nuclear program. Last week, he spoke by phone with President Hassan Rowhani, marking the first direct exchange between U.S. and Iranian leaders in more than 30 years.
“Rowhani has staked his position on the idea that he can improve relations with the rest of the world,” Obama said. “And so far he’s been saying a lot of the right things. And the question now is, can he follow through?”
But Obama said Rowhani is not Iran’s only “decision-maker. He’s not even the ultimate decision-maker,” a reference to the control wielded by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayotollah Ali Khamenei.
Khamenei said Saturday that some aspects of Rowhani’s trip to New York last month were “not appropriate,” but reiterated his crucial support for the president’s policy of outreach to the West.
The comments by Khamenei, summarized on his website, came after hard-liners criticized the 15-minute phone conversation between Rowhani and Obama.
Hard-liners, including commanders in the powerful Revolutionary Guard, have said the president went too far with the phone call in reaching out to the U.S.
But Rowhani’s outreach has received broad support from Iranian legislators and it appears popular at a time when Iran is facing crippling economic sanctions due to the nuclear impasse.
Khamenei also said the U.S. was “untrustworthy.” He has previously said he’s not opposed to direct talks with the U.S. to resolve Iran’s nuclear standoff with the West but is not optimistic.
Given Khamenei’s broad influence, some countries, most notably Israel, have questioned whether Rowhani actually represents real change in Iran or just new packaging of old policies.
Obama also put distance between U.S. and Israeli assessments of when Iran might have the capacity to build a nuclear weapon. Israeli officials have said Iran is just months away from being able to build a bomb, while Obama said Tehran was a year or more away.
But Obama said, “Our assessment continues to be a year or more away. And in fact, actually, our estimate is probably more conservative than the estimates of Israeli intelligence services.”
The president used the same timetable in March, before traveling to Israel. The U.S. and Israel contend that Iran’s nuclear program is aimed at building a bomb, while Tehran says it is enriching uranium for peaceful purposes.
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report October 5, 2013, 11:06 AM (IDT)
Egyptian soldiers break up MB demonstration
Four people were killed and dozens injured Friday and Saturday when pro-Muslim Brotherhood supporters clashed with opponents and security forces in Cairo, Alexandria, Assiut and other Egyptian towns. In Cairo, gunfire from armored vehicles and tear gas were used to seal off the emblematic Tahrir Square against crowds rallied by the Brotherhood for the “Great Counter-Coup” to be launched on Oct. 6, the 40th anniversary of the Yom Kippur war on Israel. During the week, unidentified gunmen attacked two military targets and killed five Egyptian soldiers.
The Brotherhood’s first major nationwide push to reverse the July 3 coup, which deposed Brotherhood President Mohamad Morsi, rests on five overt tactics, revealed here exclusively by debkafile’s Middle East intelligence sources:
1. Millions of Egyptians across Egypt have received orders through secret channels of communications, including mosques and religious seminaries, to surprise the authorities with a sudden mass surge onto the streets on the appointed day, Sunday.
2. The focus for now is on outlying rural towns and villages – some with populations of a million or more – where army uniforms are thin on the ground. Unaided by the military, Egypt’s internal security troops are barely up to scratch and, in small places, local police forces are mostly under the thumbs of Muslim Brotherhood bosses.
3. The Islamists chose October 6 for a display of people power because it marks the day when a Muslim army marched across the Suez Canal and confronted Israel for the recovery of Sinai. Their slogans and chants will contrast the Egyptian army of 40 years ago, when Muslim soldiers fought the infidel army, and the Egyptian army of today, which they accuse of fighting its own people.
4. Muslim Brotherhood organs and activities have been decentralized. Up until now, every protest and slogan required the approval of the central leadership in Cairo. For the coming campaign, authority has been devolved on local headquarters in cities, towns and villages.
Each is mandated to enlist manpower, compose motifs for the rallies, dictate the content of speeches and write slogans in tune with local conditions. This gives the local activists exceptional license. They have the further advantage of their identities being unknown to the security and intelligence agencies and are so able to perform without fear of arrest.
This stratagem was borrowed from the Tamarod movement, which rose up against President Morsi six months ago. Although it had no identified leaders, this popular movement was able to draw masses to Cairo for a grassroots campaign which finally toppled the Brotherhood president.
Brotherhood strategists are counting on the October 6 rallies starting a blazing uprising of many millions of its adherents across the country. First, these torch carriers will wrest control of outlying locations from the security forces; then, the Brotherhood will move onto the next stage of its counter-coup and fight to displace military and security authority in the big cities.
At height of crisis, Netanyahu was given formal notice of imminent attack on Assad; Obama’s change of heart said to have dented Israel’s faith in president’s ‘military option’ for Iran
By Raphael Ahren and Times of Israel staffOctober 5, 2013, 1:10 am
US President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepare for a press session in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Monday, September 30, 2013 (photo credit: AP/Charles Dharapak)
The Obama administration was so certain that its forces were about to attack Syria in the chemical weapons crisis at the end of August, that US officials telephoned Israel’s prime minister and defense minister to give them “advance warning” the attack was about to take place.
The phone calls, Israel’s Channel 2 news revealed Friday, were made shortly after Secretary of State John Kerry on August 31 had accused Bashar Assad’s regime of an August 21 chemical weapons attack that killed 1,429 Syrians. Israel’s leaders were told explicitly that the US would be taking punitive military action against the Assad regime within 24-48 hours.
The calls were made in accordance with the US promise to give Israel a warning ahead of such an attack, so that it could take steps to defend itself against any potential Syrian retaliation that might target the Jewish state.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon were personally telephoned, the TV report said, without revealing who made the calls.
In fact, however, President Barack Obama, a day later on September 1, surprisingly announced that he would seek Congressional authorization before a strike on Syria. (Israel was given advance warning of that change of tack as well, some four hours before the president’s announcement.) Ultimately Obama did not carry out the narrow, punitive action he had said he was planning, instead joining a Russian-led initiative for a diplomatic solution aimed at stripping Assad of his chemical weapons.
The TV report indicated that Obama’s volte face that weekend — having sent Kerry to deliver an impassioned address in which the secretary said that the “thug and murderer” Assad had to be held accountable for gassing his own people — has cast doubts in Israel as to the credibility of any last-resort American military threat against Iran. Kerry had noted in his speech, before the president’s change of heart, that the world was watching “to see whether the United States and our friends mean what we say [about not tolerating chemical weapons use]. It is directly related to our credibility and whether countries still believe the United States when it says something.”
A close colleague of Netanyahu’s, Likud MK Tzachi Hanegbi, made that Israeli concern explicit in an interview with The Times of Israel earlier this week. Hanegbi indicated that Israel is no longer certain that the Obama administration would employ military force even as a last resort to thwart Iran attaining nuclear weapons.
That new uncertainty was a direct consequence of the Syrian chemical weapons crisis, he made clear. And it explained why Netanyahu, in his speech at the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, felt the imperative to warn the Iranians that Israel would act on its own if necessary.
Speaking immediately after Netanyahu’s speech, Hanegbi stressed that “the most dramatic part” of the prime minister’s address was the passage in which he warned, “Israel will not allow Iran to get nuclear weapons. If Israel is forced to stand alone, Israel will stand alone.”
Explaining why Netanyahu had made that threat, Hanegbi said Israel’s expectation “was and remains that the United States — if the negotiations do indeed fail — would employ the military option which the president has said several times is not removed from the table. But we saw recently that even if the president has a clear and unequivocal position, as in the Syrian case, sometimes all kinds of constraints are placed upon him that are not under his control, like the position of Congress or American public opinion.
“Therefore,” Hanegbi went on, “the prime minister essentially is telling the Iranians: ‘Do not delude yourselves. Even if the Americans will be prevented from acting against you, we will know how to defend ourselves, with our own forces.’”
Former foreign minister says there’s ‘not even a quarter’ of an indication that regime has slowed drive for nukes
By Times of Israel staffOctober 5, 2013, 1:45 pm
Chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Avigdor Liberman, in Jerusalem. Sunday, September 1, 2013. (photo credit: Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Former foreign minister Avigdor Liberman, who currently heads the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, said Saturday that there’s not even a “quarter of a sign” that Iran has slowed its drive to acquire nuclear weapons.
“All international intelligence agencies are aware that nothing has changed,” he was quoted by Israel Radio saying.
“Israel is prepared to deal with the Iranian problem. Even if we stand alone. It’s better to be alone and stay alive rather than toe the line and go up in flames,” he added.
Liberman was echoing several statements made by Israeli leaders recently — including Prime Minister Netanyahu, Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz, Deputy Foreign Minister Ze’ev Elkin and Likud MK Tzachi Hanegbi — warning that Israel was ready to act alone to defend itself, and intimating that Israel was concerned that the US might be duped by Iran’s current charm offensive into cutting a negotiated deal that would not block Iran’s route to the bomb.
Netanyahu used the bulk of his speech at the UNGA on Tuesday to address the threat posed by an Iranian regime in possession of nuclear weapons, and to deride the notion that Iran would relinquish its nuclear weapons drive unless sanctions were maintained or strengthened and backed by a credible military threat.
“If Israel is forced to stand alone” against that threat, “Israel will stand alone,” Netanyahu said, though it would know that it was also defending others.
“Israel will never acquiesce to nuclear arms in the hands of a rogue regime that repeatedly promises to wipe us out,” Netanyahu said.
Labor opposition leader Shelly Yachimovich later criticized Netanyahu for what she called his “isolationist” stance, and said the US had made plain that it shared Israel’s determination to thwart iran, including with the use of military force if necessary.
The prime minister returned Friday from his trip to New York, which included a media blitz with leading news outlets warning about “wolf in sheep’s clothing” President Hassan Rouhani’s “charm offensive”
“We can never be tempted by the Iranian scheme and ease sanctions, so long as the Iranians do not dismantle their military nuclear program,” the prime minister said upon his return to Ben Gurion Airport Friday.
Playing by the public diplomacy playbook, Netanyahu would have matched Rouhani’s charm offensive with a double charm offensive of his own; he would have been a media darling; he also would have missed his target.
BINYAMIN NETANYAU is pictured on a television monitor while addressing the 68th session of the UNGA Photo: REUTERS
On Tuesday, just before Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu took the UN podium and declared Israel would act alone against Iran if need be, Iranian Foreign Minister Muhammad Javad Zarif called him the “most isolated man in the UN.” Zarif was dreaming.
Netanyahu was not isolated in the UN, and Israel – despite what we often tell ourselves, with classic Jewish mistrust – is not isolated in the world. Do not mistake the publication of EU settlement guidelines barring European cooperation with Israeli entities beyond the pre-1967 lines, or a failed, high profile BDS campaign to get aging hip-swinger Tom Jones to cancel a trip to Israel, with international isolation.
The leader of an isolated nation does not spend some seven hours in Washington – in the middle of the storm over the federal government’s shutdown – in tête-à-têtes with the US president, vice president and secretary of state, as Netanyahu did Monday.
An isolated country does not attract a $130 million investment in one of its main universities from Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing – the eighth richest man in the world – who then says of Israel that it is not a small country, but a state with an “overflowing spring of knowledge and ability; a riveting place that provides unlimited opportunities.”
Isolated? Zarif’s Iran should be so isolated.
And, though this may sound contradictory in light of Netanyahu’s declaration in his Tuesday address to the UN General Assembly that Israel will act alone against Iran if need be, Israel is not isolated in its skeptical-in-the-extreme view of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s charm and smiles campaign.
The Jerusalem Post has learned that some two months ago, Israel was approached by a key Western country with the request that it keep banging the Iranian drum loudly to keep the issue alive at a time when it was being pushed off the agenda because of Rouhani’s “moderation,” as well as the dramatic and traumatic events first in Egypt, then in Syria.
Also, toward the end of Netanyahu’s 33-minute speech on Tuesday, he made a comment that sent perceptive ears ringing.
“The dangers of a nuclear-armed Iran and the emergence of other threats in our region have led many of our Arab neighbors to recognize, finally recognize, that Israel is not their enemy,” he said.
“And this affords us the opportunity to overcome the historic animosities and build new relationships, new friendships, new hopes.”
The next night, Channel 2’s Udi Segal reported that in recent weeks, there has been a series of secret and intensive meetings between Israel and senior representatives from the Persian Gulf, to coordinate steps regarding Iran’s new diplomatic offensive.
Many in the West – the US and Europe – and many more in the Persian Gulf liked the tough line they heard from Netanyahu at the UN, though they can’t publicly admit it for various reasons.
Some in US President Barack Obama’s administration and in select European capitals liked it because with Israel still threatening military action against Iran, they have retained a big stick when they begin speaking softly to the Iranians on October 15-16 in Geneva.
A credible military threat is what recently brought the Syrians, with Russia’s urging, to agree to dismantle its chemical weapons program. Obama’s handling of that Syrian crisis – as well as his diplomatic overtures to the Iranians – have removed for the time being a credible US military threat against Iran. So it is good to still have a real Israeli threat in the room to move the Iranians. It is also likely that this good-cop, bad-cop division of labor was discussed when Obama and Netanyahu met in the White House on Monday.
The time the prime minister and the US president spent talking face-to-face was surely not wasted discussing whether Rouhani could or could not be trusted. The two sides certainly know where the other stands on that issue. In such high-level meetings, time is not exhausted on well-known positions.
Rather, what generally happens is that a common goal is defined, and the tactics for reaching that goal are hashed out – who does what, who says what.
Both the US and Israel share the goal of keeping Iran from a bomb. The question is how to do it? A day after the White House meeting, the world got a peek at Israel’s role.
“I want there to be no confusion on this point,” Netanyahu said in his speech. “Israel will not allow Iran to get nuclear weapons. If Israel is forced to stand alone, Israel will stand alone.”
Another partner who surely applauded Netanyahu’s tough words, though they would never admit it, are the Persian Gulf states, which are extremely concerned about the possibility of a nuclear Iran. Netanyahu set the Iranians on notice that he was speaking on behalf of these countries as well, when he said that if Israel stood alone, it “will know that we will be defending many, many others.”
Even as Netanyahu was clearly getting his message across to the Iranians, on a strictly hasbara level of making Israel’s case to as wide an audience as possible, the speech was a failure.
Experienced public diplomacy practitioners will tell you that the key to getting Israel’s message across – especially when dealing with a North American audience – is to keep it hopeful, upbeat and optimistic.
Don’t say there will never be peace, even if you believe it, because the North American audience always wants to hold out hope for a peaceful resolution. Be conciliatory, not aggressive; be empathetic, not sarcastic; and by all means keep God and Jewish historical tragedies out of the mix. God-talk gets many Americans nervous, and people are tired of hearing about Jewish suffering.
The prime minister, who knows the rules of hasbara very well, broke them all in his speech.
Netanyahu warned of military action against Iran, not peace. He held out no hope that Rouhani was sincere in his “moderation.”
He was sarcastic, not empathetic.
He was – as many media outlets reported – aggressive, not conciliatory. And not only did Netanyahu bring God into the picture by quoting from Amos’s prophecy about the ingathering of the exiles and the rebuilding of ruined cities and planting of new vineyards, but he also mentioned Jewish suffering with the tale of his grandfather beaten senseless by anti-Semites in 19th-century Europe.
None of that, predictably, played overly well in the mainstream American media.
The New York Times excoriated him for tying to sabotage the talks (the same New York Times which Netanyahu directly criticized in his speech by quoting from an editorial it ran in favor of diplomacy with North Korea in 2005, just a year before Pyongyang detonated a nuclear devise, showing just how much it had duped the world and the paper’s editorial board).
And Robert Gibbs, a former White House press secretary and current MSNBC analyst, said: “I don’t think Israel helps itself [with] some of the rhetoric that you heard from the prime minister.” Gibbs said the speech was “addressed to the Israeli public,” and that Israel “did not help itself with Netanyahu’s statement, especially that the world has forgotten what happened in the 20th century.”
But this speech was not addressed to the Israeli public. The Israeli public already knows what Netanyahu told the world about Iran’s duplicity. It was aimed at Iran and those negotiating with Iran.
Since Iran started developing its nuclear weapons program some three decades ago, a lot more has been going on beneath the water than above the surface – like in some high-stakes water polo match.
Below the water, the Iranians, as Netanyahu pointed out in his UN speech, were building secret nuclear facilities at Natanz and Fordow. On the surface, they pledged allegiance to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and cooperated with the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Below the water, the West – including, but not relegated, to Israel – were taking actions to prevent the specter of an armed Iranian regime. On the surface sanctions were applied, a few scientists were assassinated, computer worms sent centrifuges spinning out of control and straw companies were set up worldwide selling the Iranians faulty equipment. Again, all those steps took place on the surface and were things the public knew about. Beneath the surface, much more was, and is, taking place to keep the Iranians from becoming what they hoped to be by now: the world’s 10th nuclear armed state.
So too a lot more then met the eye was taking place during Netanyahu’s visit to the US and speech at the UN. On the surface, it looked simply like Israel squaring off alone against the world. Below the surface, it was Israel playing its tactical role in a complex chess game to get Iran to stop its nuclear march through diplomacy.
In April of this year, The Washington Post editorialized that despite a breakdown in talks that month between the world powers and Iran, neither the US nor Israel was under pressure to consider immediate military action. The proponents of more diplomacy, the paper wrote, can thank Netanyahu, a man “they have often ridiculed or reviled.” Netanyahu’s explicit setting of a “red line” appears to have accomplished what neither negotiations nor sanctions have yielded: concrete Iranian action to limit its enrichment, the paper wrote.
“A host of commentators, both in the United States and Israel, scoffed at what they called Mr. Netanyahu’s ‘cartoonish’ picture of a bomb and the line he drew across it,” The Washington Post editorialized.
“Iran, too, dismissed what its UN ambassador called ‘an unfounded and imaginary graph.’ But then a funny thing happened: The regime began diverting more of its stockpile to the manufacture of fuel plates for a research reactor.”
In other words, Netanyahu got Iran’s attention at that time. Chances are he got its attention this time as well, though – like then – to do so he paid a public diplomacy price in coming across as overly aggressive.
Sometimes, however, it is necessary to pay a price in hasbara for a greater strategic goal.
The Israeli PM was back in his element, working the New York media, but his message of gloom and doom marred his vindication as the man who warned the West.
Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Obama at the White House this week.Photo by Reuters
Throughout his long, exhaustive and often intimate interview with Charlie Rose on PBS this week, Benjamin Netanyahu glanced sideways every few minutes, away from his host and toward his aides and confidantes standing on the sidelines.
“How’m I doing?” his eyes seemed to be asking, Ed Koch-style. “Look, I’m still a master of the pointed one-liner, a connoisseur of the appropriate phrase. Tell me I’m not the best, after all these years.”
There was something touching in Netanyahu’s need for approval, you must admit, at least if you’re in a generous mood. Netanyahu is one of the most accomplished spokespersons that Israel has ever had, at least in English, with the legendary Abba Eban as his only serious rival. But here he was, begging for some positive feedback, seeking and expecting applause for a nifty metaphor, a cute idiom, a clever colloquialism delivered in the kind of impeccable American accent that only daily usage can maintain.
Netanyahu was back in his element, at the scene of his prime, working the New York media just as he did almost 30 years ago when he served as Israel’s envoy to the United Nations. He huddled with his old chum Andrea from NBC, joked around with Charlie from PBS and gave interviews in Spanish and even Farsi, carefully planting his pithy observations and his pointed one-liners to shore up his dark and foreboding speech on Tuesday at the UN General Assembly.
It was just like the good old days. Netanyahu was on a “media blitz,” his bureau explained, “to puncture the balloon” that Iranian President Rohani had inflated, pulling the U.S. media back down to earth from the delusional heights to which they had soared. His spokespersons distributed YouTube pictorials of Netanyahu being interviewed along with tweets that proclaimed, without blushing it seems, that he was a “Light to the (United) Nations.”
Netanyahu and his aides claimed that they had carefully bided their time before lowering Bibi’s boom on the Rohani festivities, but underneath their boastful bravado one could detect clear signs disappointment, if not desperation. The American media dutifully broadcast their interviews with Netanyahu, but did so furtively and minimialistically, as if an old friend had asked for an inconvenient favor, before switching back to the political drama of the government shutdown in Washington. Netanyahu, suddenly, was the wrong man, at the wrong time, with the wrong message.
The cruel irony, of course, is that Netanyahu was being relegated to the sidelines at the very minute that he was arguably marking his greatest victory, his historic vindication.
It was he, after all, who started warning the West 30 years ago about the Iranian threat; he, who wrote in his book “A Place Among the Nations” two decades ago that only American leadership and tough international sanctions could stop the nuclear drive of Iranian fundamentalism, a “cancerous tumor that threatens Western civilization.” He, who at a chance meeting seven years ago in the VIP lounge at Reagan International Airport in Washington DC convinced then-senator Barack Obama – according to Netanyahu’s aides – to sponsor a bill toughening sanctions against Tehran; he, who campaigned against Iran’s nuclear program from his first day as prime minister; he, who enlisted the U.S. Congress and American Jewry to his side; he, who was the driving force, in many ways, behind the toughest sanctions regime the world has ever seen, the one that is now bringing Tehran, possibly on its knees, to seek an accommodation.
This was the moment that Netanyahu could have smugly said “I told you so,” but his triumph was also the instrument of his undoing, an affliction in disguise, the sweet taste of victory that turned bitter in his mouth. He was entangled in the internal contradiction of having to express grudging support for a diplomatic solution in which he hardly believes, a process of negotiations that he himself had engineered but which now rendered him largely irrelevant.
Netanyahu, who does nothing to discourage sycophants who place him on a pedestal with his hero, Winston Churchill, could have been compared this week to the Churchill of July, 1945, after his astonishing thrashing by Labour’s Clement Atlee in the general elections, when the Brits saluted the British bulldog’s triumph over Nazi Germany but decided it was time for something completely different.
Suddenly, Netanyahu found himself recast once again as that annoying killjoy of yesteryear, the self-anointed prophet of doom, the obsessive pessimist who can’t see a ray of light, even when it is shining in his eyes – who “can’t take ‘yes’ for an answer,” just like the Republicans on Capitol Hill.
His tough and uncompromising speech at the UN may have been appreciated by most Israelis – including this one – but it was less favorably received, when it wasn’t being ignored, by American officials and opinion-makers. Even Jewish leaders who tend to agree with Netanyahu’s overall analysis of Iran’s sinister designs told me later that his speech was too black, too dire, too eager to erase any hope. The additional two days that Netanyahu spent in New York, they said, only poured fat on the fire, driving home his somewhat insulting view that naïve Americans were being duped by the sweet but empty words of Rohani.
Netanyahu, in fact, may have overstayed his welcome. By Thursday, when he was slated to leave, some Administration officials were already grumbling that he had gone back to his bad old ways, drumming up public opinion against the Administration in its own back yard. In unusually blunt diplomatese, Secretary of State John Kerry said that refraining from pursuing talks with Iran would be “diplomatic malpractice of the worst kind” – not that Netanyahu was suggesting anything of the kind, of course.
In the next weeks, as he travels to Asia and deals with the government shutdown and debt ceiling crises, President Obama will formulate the principles of U.S. engagement that Kerry will carry with him to the October 15 P5+1 round of talks in Geneva, in which Iran is expected to submit its opening offer to resolve the nuclear standoff. Netanyahu will have to mark time as a kibitzer on the sidelines and to play second fiddle. as Rohani takes center stage in a play that Netanyahu, at least by his own account, largely wrote on his own.
Of course, it’s too early to tell, if one may borrow from Dickens, whether we are approaching an age of wisdom or foolishness, a season of Light or a season of Darkness, a spring of hope or a winter of despair.
Though he may be shunned now, Netanyahu has once again put his money on the worst possible scenario. In the Middle East, of course, that usually turns out to be to be the safest bet of all.
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