This week’s American presidential visit to Israel puts the spotlight not only on
the US-Israel relationship in general, but perhaps more importantly, also on the
context of American and Israeli strategic concerns and
interests.
President Barack Obama’s planned Iron Dome photo-op at
Ben-Gurion International Airport is symbolic of the high level of security-based
partnership between the two countries in such matters as prepositioning of US
arms and equipment; missile defense in its wider aspects; and intelligence
issues, as well as different classified matters. Without the American
military-related aid to Israel, which serves both Israeli and American strategic
interests, much of the above would not have been possible.
Click here for full JPost coverage of Obama's visit to Israel To
sensation-hungry journalists, the titillating relationship between Obama and
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is a favorite topic, but though personal
chemistry does sometimes play a role in international relations – either
positive, like between Golda and LBJ and Nixon, or negative, such as at least
intermittently between Shamir and Bush 41 – what really mattered then, and does
now, are the respective diplomatic, strategic and often political (on both
sides) interests.
Talking about the present, Obama took account of this
when he decided to go to Jerusalem, as did Netanyahu, but the incalculably more
important reset in the US-Israel relationship must focus on the altered
situation in the world, and especially the broader Middle East – all the way
from the Maghreb and the Sahel and Mali to Afghanistan and Pakistan, and, of
course, nuclearizing Iran and disintegrating Syria and how this will impact the
US-Israel alliance in coming years.
Another point to consider in this
respect is Turkey, which under Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s stewardship
seems to be bent on throwing as many spanners as possible into the works of its
bilateral ties with Israel, negatively affecting the strategic equation in the
region as well.
BUT IN Israel and in America, those who care about the
special relationship between the two countries and peoples, which is based both
on common strategic interests but also on shared values, also ask themselves if
and how this relationship might in the future be influenced by a perception,
even a false one, of a “declining” America not yet isolationist but certainly
more inward-looking.
An important, soon-to-bepublished book called The
Dispensable Nation by Vali Nasr, a former senior Obama administrative insider
who is currently a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and the dean of
the Johns Hopkins Institute of Advanced International Studies, claims that with
regard to Afghanistan, for instance, the goal of policy-makers was “not to make
strategic decisions, but to satisfy public opinion” and that “a small cabal of
relatively inexperienced White House advisers whose turf was strictly politics”
made US policy.
Though the book focuses mainly on Afghanistan, the
implications could be much wider. As one commentator who saw an advance copy of
the book put it, “The book only confirms the general impression that Obama is a
man without a foreign policy. He had naïve aspirations, a world to be changed by
the transformative power of a good speech, but no clear path to achieve
anything.
It is not going too far to say that American foreign policy has
become completely subservient to tactical domestic political considerations,” a
statement reminiscent of the oft-quoted Kissinger remark that Israel has no
foreign policy, only domestic policy.
A related subject of debate in
think tanks both in Washington and in Israel is the imagined or real
philosophical and ideological attitudes of the president toward the Arab and
Islamic worlds, whether this could have potential negative repercussions on the
US-Israel relationship and how Israel should cope with it.
NATURALLY, IT
is not for Israelis to define American strategic interests, but it is for us to
try to understand them, and if necessary, sometimes question them when they
concern us, but always with the aim of minimizing, and if possible, avoiding
contentions.
For example, will US strategic interests in the Middle East
in the foreseeable future still be driven by energy concerns or will its growing
energy independence divert it to a different course? And what in concrete terms
does “pivoting from the Middle East to Southeast Asia” mean? And perhaps most
urgently, how much have the developments and turmoil in the Arab World changed
the former (or perhaps still extant) conventional wisdom in Washington that the
Israel-Palestinian problem supposedly was the main reason for instability in the
region and for the problems the US faces there? That said, one way or another,
the Palestinian problem will also be on the table in Jerusalem. America’s
position in this regard has always been a bit anomalous: Historically it never
played the lead role in actually initiating concrete moves toward peace – not
with Egypt, not with Jordan, not with the Palestinians and in the latter case,
when it did, it was usually unsuccessful. But, on the other hand, no move toward
peace would have been completed without an active role by the US.
Thus,
the president will probably refrain, wisely, from so-called initiatives, though
it would help if he were to bring the Palestinians back to the negotiating
table, getting them down from the high tree they got themselves onto, among
other things because of the administration’s admitted missteps during its first
term.
Albeit, in realistic terms, it must be clear that a conclusive
solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict won’t be found anytime soon, and
the mantra that everything is supposedly clear along the “Clinton proposals,”
like most mantras, can’t be proven.
And last, but certainly not least,
Iran. In this matter, there is today less space between Israel and the US than
in the past. Still, what do the statements that “America will not let Tehran
have the bomb” and that “all options are on the table” mean in real terms? This
question has now acquired special urgency in view of the progress in the Iranian
nuclear efforts and the apparent failure of the sanctions and diplomacy to put a
stop to them.
The Obama visit could be a new beginning in the US-Israel
relationship in the sense that it will reemphasize the important existing
elements in the relationship, but also examine what should still be done to
strengthen it further.
No less important, it is an opportunity to
reinforce mutual trust and openness between the two leaders.
The author served
as Israeli ambassador to the US in 1990- 1993 and 1998-2000.