Everyone Seems to Agree That Israel Must Solve the "Iranian Problem"
They say nothing happens in Washington in August - the President is away, Congress is out, even traffic is easy. But it isn't true. In Washington in August, everyone is getting ready for September. Word is out that the Obama Administration is working on a grand strategy to present at the UN when the General Assembly opens. The rumored outlines:
- Israel agrees to a settlement freeze of some sort and some duration, allowing the administration to claim that it has done the world a favor and beaten Israel into submission.
- Some Gulf States agree that people with Israeli stamps on their passport (though not necessarily Israelis) can enter their countries, and agree to accept limited trade with Israel. Others do not. Saudi Arabia's failure to publicly object allows the administration to claim that Israel has been accepted in the region and has nothing to fear from additional concessions to the Palestinians.
- Abu Mazen agrees to accept the additional concessions from Israel, allowing the administration to claim it is on the way to a Palestinian State. The question of who Abu Mazen represents is papered over. The Hamas-Fatah (-al Qaeda?) civil war in Gaza - complete with suicide bombers, rockets fired into and out of mosques and dozens of civilian casualties - is papered over.
It doesn't sound like much of a deal for Israel - Syria, which is busily funneling al Qaeda fighters into Iraq and partying with Ahmadinejad in Tehran - is not involved; Egypt has declined; the Palestinians are no closer to agreeing in public or private that they will settle for a rump split state wedged between a hostile Israel and a hostile Jordan - its own two parts not talking to each other. So what does Israel get? An anonymous administration source is reported to have said, "Settlements are not strategic; Iran is strategic."
So in exchange for fuzzying up its red lines, a series of papered over semi-agreements, and an excellent photo op with the President at the UN, Israel gets stronger American rhetoric on Iran? Or, some sort of American green light for Israel to take care of the problem itself?
No, they don't say it that way, of course, but you didn't think the administration was actually going to DO something about Iran, did you? The administration has been saying Iran faces some deadline in September and the administration is committed to some Arab-Israeli grand deal, but where they come together is problematic.
Russia and China as yet have no incentive to enter a U.S.-led deal on serious Iran sanctions. (The opposite is true of China - they need Iranian energy and want the Iranians to refrain from fueling the Uighur fire. This makes the basis of a Chinese-Iranian deal.) Even the Europeans have no real incentive to terminate their lucrative trade with Tehran - check out the dollar volume of the German-Iranian deal guaranteed by the Merkel government. The President knows this.
But if everyone can agree that ISRAEL is now responsible for solving the "Iranian problem" and that Israel had actually gotten something in exchange for creating the Palestinian state the Americans and the Europeans so desperately appear to want - much more than the Palestinians seem to want it - then everyone could agree that August had been well-spent.
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