Obama’s woes back home

Inder Malhotra

Feb 5 2015 

FOR quite some years, especially since the advent of the quaintly named Tea Party, an extreme rightist group, entered the Republican ranks in the United States, I have been pondering one question: Is there greater hatred between the Congress and the BJP in the world's largest democracy or that between the Republicans and the Democrats in the most powerful? 

After deep thought, I am inclined to conclude that although the BJP-Congress adversarial relationship here is articulated so vehemently as to sometimes border on the vulgar. Remember the Ramzada vs Haramzada speech of a sadhvi? It is the Republicans' enmity with the Democrats, with President Barack Obama in particular, that takes the cake. 

We in this country have, for good reasons, been so absorbed in Obama's visit here on Republic Day that we have hardly taken note of something happening in Washington gravely to damage the president. It has also caused deep and widespread concern in the Middle East that we call West Asia. 

Ever since the Republicans acquired control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate they have been determined to make Obama's life as miserable as possible. 

A major foreign policy issue they have chosen to confront the president is Iran’s nuclear programme and Obama's “pusillanimous” policy on it. They want harshest additional sanctions on Iran immediately, but they haven’t prevailed so far. So what did the Speaker of the House of Representatives, John Boehner, do? 

Entirely on his own, without any consultation with the White House, he shot off an invitation to a kindred soul, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to come to Washington and address both Houses of US Congress to back up the Republican demand. Needless to add that Netanyahu has gladly accepted the invitation while ignoring the White House completely. He will deliver the speech next month. Since elections in Israel are taking place on March 17 he is obviously hoping that he will win. 

As a leader defeated at the polls he would not have any locus standi. In any case, Boehner and his cohorts are convinced that Netanyahu would tear to pieces the Obama policy on Iran. He considers a nuclear-armed Iran an existential threat to Israel, and makes no bones about his belief that Obama would have no hesitation in accepting a deal with Iran that would jeopardise not only Israel’s supreme interests and even survival. There are many Americans, not all of them Jews, who agree with Netanyahu's criticism of their own president. 

In any case, the Jewish lobby in the US is so strong as to enable the Israeli prime minister to insult Obama even on American soil. In 2012, when Obama was campaigning for his re-election and Netanyahu was visiting the US, Zbigniew Brzezinski, a highly respected former national security adviser, went to the CNN strongly to denounce Israeli leader’s “boorish manners” and America’s tolerance of these. 

What he might say about the present mess is not known. But it is remarkable that this time around Boehner has had to face a reaction that is very critical of him. 

To begin with those Democratic senators and Congressmen who were on the Republican side on Iran issue have told him that are not a party to welcoming Netanyahu who has been invited by someone not authorised to do so. 

To them it is unacceptable that some head of government should come and go to the US without meeting the President. In the case of Netanyahu, this discourtesy becomes all the more intolerable, they have said, because Israel has received from the US almost total support and gargantuan aid. Among the analysts and commentators the reaction has been even stronger.

 

For instance, writing in Washington Post, Richard Cohen, obviously a Jew says: “I wouldn’t be surprised if at the next convention of the Republicans, Benjamin Netanyahu sits in the delegates-from-abroad corner because he likes this party’s sharp opposition to President Obama’s Iran policy, and together with them hates Obama's guts for both personal reasons”. 

The commentator adds that he is with the President on Iran because additional sanctions against it would “drive Iran away from the conference table”. At the same time, however, Cohen is critical of Obama’s “piecemeal strategy that is destined to fail”. Obama, he emphasises, had warned Syria that it would invite strict action if it used chemical weapons — the “famous red line” that turned into a “red-faced embarrassment”. 

Obama lost more than did Bashar el-Assad. More significantly, a series of military leaders who are known to have been highly critical of President Obama's policies in Afghanistan, Iraq and ISIS (the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) in private discussions and semi-publicly, have suddenly united in his defence and in their condemnation of both Netanyahu and Boehner. Each one of them has stated that “no American in uniform would tolerate any attempt by anyone to decry his commander-in-chief. Netanyahu should beware”. 

Of the many retired Generals who have written on the subject, General Paul Eaton is an avid supporter of Israel. Even so, he wrote his piece in the leading Israeli daily Haaretz. In it he warned Netanyahu that his appearance in the US Congress would be “perilous to both countries”. 

But he reserved his harshest criticism for the “highly inappropriate” role of Boehner to “so publicly to meddle in foreign affairs”. 

This was not a question of mere “protocol but also of propriety”. Since President Obama will be in the White House for another two years many wonder openly how far relations between the US and Israel would deteriorate if Netanyahu remains Israel's prime minister. 

Others argue that US-Israel relations have weathered a score of crises over the years. The most remarkable was the one 25 years ago when James Baker III was Secretary of State. A joint foreign minister of Israel so infuriated him that the latter's entry into the state department was banned. His name: Benjamin Netanyahu.