WASHINGTON - After eight years of the closest possible relations, the United
States and Israel may be headed for a period of increased strain, particularly
as it appears likely that whatever Israeli government emerges from last week's
election will be more hawkish than its predecessor.
Iran, with which President Barack Obama has pledged to engage in a
"constructive dialogue", and the future of its nuclear program will no doubt be
the greatest source of tension between the two allies. The new president's
commitment to achieving real progress on a two-state solution to the
Israel-Palestinian conflict may also provoke serious friction.
This will particularly be the case should a reunified Arab League launch a
major new push for the adoption of its 2002 peace plan, which provides for Arab
recognition of Israel in return for the
latter's withdrawal from all occupied Arab lands.
Last week's election produced a clear majority for right-wing parties led by
the Likud Party of former prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who has repeatedly
declared his opposition to a settlement freeze, territorial concessions and the
creation of a viable Palestinian state.
With the endorsement of Avigdor Lieberman, whose party, Israel Our Home, came a
strong third in last week's general elections, Netanyahu appears increasingly
likely to become prime minister.
Even if the more-centrist Kadima leader, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, can
patch together a government of national unity, the right-wing parties will be
able to effectively block major concessions in any peace talks, in the absence
of any external pressure.
"Given the philosophical differences between Kadima and Likud on peace issues,
such a unity government would be hard-pressed to make the historic decisions
needed to reach a deal with the Palestinians," wrote former US Middle East
peace negotiator, Aaron David Miller, in the Jewish publication Forward this
week.
But Obama and his Middle East Special Envoy George Mitchell may indeed be
willing to exert pressure on Israel - among other things, by tabling their own
views about a final peace agreement and how precisely it might be achieved -
especially if ongoing Arab efforts to reconcile Hamas and Fatah in a new
coalition government succeed.
If all goes well on that front, the Arab League, fortified by a developing
rapprochement between Syria and Saudi Arabia, could announce the latest version
of its 2002 peace plan at next month's summit in Doha, according to Marc Lynch,
a George Washington University specialist on Arab politics.
Such a move "could galvanize the situation and put the onus on whatever Israeli
government emerges to respond positively", he wrote on his widely read blog on
the Foreign Policy website this week.
"If you have a unified Palestinian government and a unified Arab move for
peace," added Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator, "then it's much
more likely that Obama will step up his own efforts - ideally, working with an
Israeli government that's ready to go along with a serious peace process, but,
if not, being willing to make his disagreement [with that government] known."
The result could be a serious test between the next Israeli government and its
influential US advocates. The Obama administration clearly believes that real
progress toward resolving the 60-year-old conflict is critical both to
restoring Washington's credibility among the Arab states and curbing the
further radicalization of the region's population - particularly in the wake of
Israel's recent military offensive in Gaza.
A more likely source of tension between the US and Israel, however, will be
Iran's nuclear program.
"It's very important to realize that Iran is going to be the most likely issue
on which Israel and the United States will have a serious difference of
opinion, if not a confrontation, in the next year," warned former US ambassador
Samuel Lewis after the Israeli elections.
Although Netanyahu has been the most outspoken, virtually the entire Israeli
political and military establishment has described Iran's alleged nuclear
ambitions as an "existential" threat to the Jewish state. They have suggested
that Israel should be prepared to unilaterally attack Tehran's key nuclear
facilities as early as next year if it cannot persuade Washington to do so.
Already last year, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert asked former president George W
Bush for bunker-busting bombs, refueling capacity and permission to fly over
Iraq for an attack on Iran, according to a new book by New York Times
correspondent David Sanger, entitled Inheritance.
That request was strongly opposed by Pentagon Chief Robert Gates, who has been
retained by Obama, and ultimately rejected by Bush. According to Bush's former
top Middle East aide, Elliott Abrams, Bush - who almost never denied the
Israelis anything - was worried that any attack on Iran risked destabilizing
Iraq.
While the violence in Iraq has continued to decline, US military commanders
insist that stability there remains "fragile", so Bush's concerns about the
implications for Iraq of a US or Israeli attack on Iran are likely to be shared
by Obama.
Even more important, however, is the new administration's conviction that
Afghanistan and Pakistan - which, like Iraq, also border Iran - constitute the
true "central front in the war on terror". This assessment was backed up by
Obama's announcement this week that he will deploy 17,000 more US troops to
Afghanistan over the next few months, bringing the total US and North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO) troop strength there to some 80,000.
Top US civilian and military officials dealing with "AfPak", as the new
administration has dubbed the two countries, have made clear that they hope to
enlist Iran, with which Washington cooperated in ousting the Taliban in 2001,
in helping to stabilize Afghanistan.
''It is absolutely clear that Iran plays an important role in Afghanistan,"
Obama's Special Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, said in
Kabul earlier this week in an interview during which he pointedly declined to
repeat Bush administration charges that Tehran was aiding the Taliban. "[Iran
has] a legitimate role to play in this region, as do all of Afghanistan's
neighbors," he insisted.
Most regional specialists, including Bruce Riedel, who co-chairs the White
House's "AfPak" policy review, and John Brennan, Obama's top counter-terrorism
adviser, have long argued that Iran's cooperation would make Washington's
effort to stabilize the region and ultimately defeat al-Qaeda markedly easier
while, conversely, its active opposition, as in Iraq, is likely to make the
task considerably more difficult.
That assessment has, if anything, gained strength in just the past few weeks as
Washington has scrambled to secure new supply lines into land-locked
Afghanistan after a key bridge in Pakistan's Khyber Pass was destroyed by
Taliban militants there and Kyrgyzstan threatened to end Washington's access to
its Manas air base.
While US efforts to compensate have focused so far on the overland route
through Russia and the Central Asian "Stans", a growing number of voices have
noted that a much less costly and more efficient alternative route would run
from Iran's southern ports into western Afghanistan.
Although Tehran would no doubt be very reluctant to permit the US military to
use its territory at this point, NATO's supreme commander, US General John
Craddock, said earlier this month that he had no objection if other NATO
members could negotiate an access agreement with Iran.
Of course, it is not yet clear whether US success in "AfPak" - and Iran's
possible role in securing it - will help trump Washington's concerns about
Tehran's nuclear ambitions.
But the clear priority stabilizing Southwest Asia is being given by the new
administration, and the abrupt change in the rhetoric emanating from Washington
about Iran - not to mention abiding concerns regarding Iran's ability to
destabilize Iraq - clearly run counter to Israel's efforts to depict Tehran's
nuclear program, as in Netanyahu's words, "the greatest challenge facing the
leaders of the 21st century ... ".
Obama will surely make it more difficult for Netanyahu or anyone else in the
next Israeli government to "harness the US administration to stop the threat".
Jim Lobe's blog on US foreign policy can be read at http://www.ips.org/blog/jimlobe/.
(Inter Press Service)
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