There is nothing more annoying to the White House than foreign leaders’ intervention in the internal affairs of America. That is, of course, except in those cases when foreign leaders support the position of the White House. Thus, when the British Prime Minister phoned members of the US Congress to persuade them not to support new legislation that would put more sanctions on Iran, not a peep of protest was heard. In fact, the White House invited the intervention. But we can guess what might happen if the head of another government, of another friendly country, would call members of Congress for the opposite purpose – to convince them to support more sanctions. In fact, we don’t even have to guess: yesterday such a leader was invited to speak before Congress in support of new sanctions, and it did not take opponents of the sanctions too long before they started their usual protestation.
Separating the responses to Netanyahu's invitation to Congress from politics – he was invited by Speaker Boehner to speak about Iran in February – is hard for everyone. Washington politics are at stake, and Israeli politics are at stake. This was obvious as soon as the news of the invitation began circulating.
The leftist Haaretz daily, demonstrating a typical inability to separate the news from its editors’ views, immediately headlined the story as follows: “The Congress in service of Netanyahu: invited to speak on Iran in February”. In Israel a narrative emerged, according to which it is the Republicans in Congress that aim to assist Netanyahu in his reelection bid who are behind the visit. Of course, there is an opposite narrative emerging in Washington according to which it is Netanyahu that is coming to Congress to help the Republican majority wage battle against President Obama.
The White House was clearly unhappy with the sudden announcement that a visit is coming. It said it was a breach of protocol, and it definitely has a point. According to this protocol, President Obama could ask Prime Minister Cameron to speak to the congressmen and congresswomen, but Speaker Boehner cannot ask Prime Minister Netanyahu to do likewise. But a skeptic should still wonder: would the White House care so much about the protocol if it knew that Netanyahu was coming to Washington to convince Congress not to put more pressure on Iran?
Having said all that I am not at all certain that Netanyahu should play this Washington game and come to speak before Congress. I am also not certain that he should refrain from coming. Surely, there's a lot of politics involved – and that is a strong argument against Netanyahu's invitation and speech. The battle for the new sanctions law heats up this week. On the one side, President Obama. On the other side, the Republican-controlled Congress.
But not everything in life is politics, not even for a politician. Netanyahu is also a Prime Minister that runs a country. And he happens to believe that Iran is a serious threat that the world has to deal with. And he was offered an opportunity to speak about his belief in Congress, and push for stronger sanctions. If the threat is serious – even existential, as he has suggested more than once – should the Prime Minister pass on an opportunity to put his mark on an important process just because some people might say that he is being “political”?
Yesterday, when the news of Netanyahu’s Congressional invitation broke out, I was sitting on a panel at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) discussing the question: “Increased US Pressure on Iran? Implications of the Sanctions Legislation on the Nuclear Talks and on US-Israel Relations”. Speaking before me was Minister Yuval Steinitz. Speaking after me were two wise interpreters of Iran’s state of affairs, Meir Javedanfar and Raz Zimet, and both were not quite hopeful that new sanctions are going to change Iran’s behavior. They are not alone. In Israel there are those who do not see an advantage in having more sanctions at this time – including members of Israel's intelligence community. Bloomberg's Josh Rogin and Eli Lake revealed yesterday that “the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad…[was] telling U.S. officials and lawmakers that a new Iran sanctions bill in the U.S. Congress would tank the Iran nuclear negotiations”.
If this really happened, it would be an incentive for Netanyahu to make the speech, in order to clarify Israel's stance – Netanyahu is the Prime Minister and, with all due respect to Mossad, Israel's policies are determined by Israel's leaders, not by its intelligence agencies. Yet there are also things that should make Netanyahu reconsider the invitation, one of them being: would his visit improve the odds of Congress passing legislation against Iran, and overriding a Presidential veto that Obama already committed himself to using?
The President has already shown that he is ready to use harsh rhetorical devices to prevent the Senate from tying his hands in negotiations with Iran. Last week, in a highly problematic moment, Obama complained that Senators support the sanctions because of “donors’ pressure”. Some people interpreted the meaning of “donors” to be “Jews”. Others were less sensitive, but still angry. Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey has been leading this fight for many years and did not enjoy Obama's claim that he was only doing it because of pressure and not because of his belief that sanctions are essential. So some Democrats will surely vote for sanctions. And as Fawn Johnson of The National Journal suggested yesterday, Iran could be Obama’s first overridden veto.
Yet the more the battle over sanctions is seen as a political battle, the less it is likely that enough Democratic Senators would be willing to join a Republican majority in passing a bill against Obama’s wishes. At least thirteen Democratic Senators are needed for this to happen. That is, if all Republicans, Rand Paul included, support new sanctions. I wonder if the speech by Netanyahu, the political storm that it creates, the reaction of the administration – if all these would truly improve the odds of a bill passing. If one is willing to give Netanyahu credit that he wants to speak because of Iran, and not because of Israel's coming elections, one should still examine the ability of Netanyahu to have an impact that is constructive from his own point of view.
It is a tough call. Not as easy as most responders make it seem. Relations with the white House are important, relations with Congress are important, Iran is important, sanctions are important, negotiations are important. All parties involved in the recent controversy are politicians – Netanyahu and Boehner, but also Obama, and many of the other critics of Netanyahu's invitation. All of them have political motivations, and all of them also want to advance certain policies.
So this is the only important question: Does a visit by Netanyahu advance the policies in which he believes? Does it help him make a sanctions bill against Iran more likely? The rest is noise.
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