Biden, Bennett and Iran

The Taliban and ISIS-K have already accomplished something that Benjamin Netanyahu and Naftali Bennett could not: they seem to have convinced Joe Biden to stay in the Middle East.

To be clear, Biden is not keeping U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Despite the terrorist attacks in recent days, there will soon be no more American boots on the ground in that country. Biden, like Barack Obama and Donald Trump before him, has made it clear that he would like a smaller U.S. footprint in the region. But the terrorist attack at the Kabul airport was a gruesome reminder to him that for American presidents, leaving that part of the world is much easier said than done.

Obama wanted to “pivot” our country’s attention away from the Mideast to the Pacific Rim, for understandable economic and geopolitical reasons. Trump’s isolationism reflected a desire to simply bring our troops home, a sentiment strongly supported by populists at both ends of the political spectrum. Biden’s instincts are somewhere in between, more internationalist than Trump but not to the same extent as Obama (or George Bush or Bill Clinton, for that matter). 

Biden sees China and Russia as his top two foreign policy priorities, and has made it clear since his election that other U.S. foreign involvement would receive much less attention. It took the short but bloody war between Hamas and Israel this spring to remind him of the importance of an American presence in the region, and the Kabul massacre has reinforced that message even more strongly.

This made Naftali Bennett’s initial visit to Washington especially timely. The Israeli government has watched the global criticism directed at Biden for the rushed and disorganized manner of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, and they believe that this can be used as a potential pressure point to convince Biden to retain an American presence in Iraq and Syria for the foreseeable future. So even if the Kabul terrorist attack forced a postponement of the Biden-Bennett meeting, the fact that the attack happened one day before the two leaders met clearly worked out to Israel’s benefit.

Otherwise, the primary purpose of the meeting was simply for Biden and Bennett to demonstrate that they were not Trump and Netanyahu. The policy differences between the two men seem intractable, but with the exception of the potential Iranian nuclear deal, the distance between them on most other issues—including those relating to settlements, Palestinian statehood and even dealings with Gaza and Hamas—can be swept under the rug for the next few years.

But there’s no question that Iran’s nuclear capability will dominate this relationship going forward. It is in the interests of both Biden and Bennett to maintain an affable personal relationship and a veneer of civility on their strong differences regarding the best strategy for dealing with the mullahs. So both are more than happy to wear velvet gloves over iron fists for the time being. Where this gets interesting, and more challenging, is when the Biden Administration must finally recognize that it can no longer continue seemingly fruitless negotiations, and must decide whether to accede to absolutist demands from the Iranian government to achieve an agreement or to walk away satisfied that it has made every possible effort.

Bennett has decided that it makes more sense to play the role of ally rather than antagonist. 

In the meantime, Bennett has decided that it makes more sense to play the role of ally rather than antagonist. While he is stridently opposed to any deal that would allow Iran to continue its nuclear program, he emphasized ways that Israel and the U.S. can work together to avoid that possibility. This is a marked contrast to Netanyahu’s more confrontational approach, and reflects Bennett’s belief that he’s more likely to affect Biden’s strategy with sweet talk rather than barbed criticism.

Recent statements from Biden’s team suggest a growing impatience with Iran’s stalling tactics, but it’s difficult to tell from the outside whether that reflects their desperation or exasperation. Bennett is calculating whether keeping a dialogue going with the U.S. might help encourage Biden’s negotiators to give up and walk away. But if he’s wrong, all the good manners that were on display between the two men last week will disappear quickly.

Dan Schnur teaches political communications at UC Berkeley, USC and Pepperdine.