"Obama's Kruschev"

I continue to wonder why Roger Cohen seems relegated to the ether of the dot com while Friedman rules the print edition, but never mind. Via Sullivan, Cohen writes that Netanyahu expected another compliant U.S. president, one that would begrudgingly accept Israel's provocations and avoid pissing off AIPAC. Like Medvedev before him, he underestimated the president's resolve (and his anger).

All the global mutterings about the “Carterization” of Obama, and the talk (widespread in Israel) of kicking the can down the road and so getting through the “garbage time” of a one-term president — that is suddenly yesterday’s chatter.

The reminder was timely: This man is no softie. He’s a politician tough enough to watch his rivals auto-destruct on his cool, and principled enough to set the right long-term objectives, including “comprehensive diplomatic contacts and dialogue” with Iran, as he said in his second Nowruz, or New Year, greeting to Iranians.

It fell to Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, to play the role Khrushchev once played in toughening a young American president.

The former Soviet leader thought he could browbeat Kennedy only to discover, in Vienna, that the Kennedy charm was not unalloyed to steel (“It will be a long, cold winter.”) Netanyahu was the first foreign leader to think he could steamroll Obama. He earned a frosty comeuppance.

The Israeli leader toyed with Obama’s unequivocal call in Cairo last June for a “stop” to Israeli settlements. He allowed the ill-timed announcement that 1,600 apartments for Jews will be built in East Jerusalem. Then, rather than scrap that, Netanyahu chose cheap cheers from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee with “Jerusalem is not a settlement.”

(I say cheap because everyone knows Jerusalem is not a settlement. That’s not the issue. The issue is that the Israeli annexation of East Jerusalem is rejected by the rest of the world and any peace agreement will involve an inventive deal on its status. To build is therefore to provoke.)

Obama was not amused. He airbrushed Netanyahu’s White House visit. The message was clear: The Middle East status quo does not serve the interests of the United States (or Israel). When Obama says “stop,” he does not mean “build a bit.”

Sometimes mistakes are needed. Through the law of unintended consequences they open new avenues.

I hope he's right. Obama made it abundantly clear that his administration believes the policies of the current Israeli government are not in the best interests of the U.S. -- nor of Israel. And he made it clear to the Palestinians and perhaps the larger Arab world that they might have an honest broker in the White House.

I can’t foretell the consequences of the Obama-Netanyahu spat, but it might speed a new, more centrist Israeli government including Kadima. That would help. It will bolster Obama next time he has to get tough with the Palestinians, who must curb incitement, renounce violence and clarify their end goals.

Obama’s stance has also demonstrated that his focus on Israel-Palestine will not be diverted by Netanyahu’s push to place the Iranian nuclear program front and center. This is critical: Iran cannot be a Palestine-postponing pawn.

Already, there are shifts in Israeli attitudes as a result of the new American clarity. Last year, Netanyahu described Iran’s leaders as “a messianic apocalyptic cult,” which was silly. Of late we’ve had Ehud Barak, the Israeli defense minister, setting things right: “I don’t think the Iranians, even if they got the bomb, are going to drop it in the neighborhood. They fully understand what might follow. They are radical but not total ‘meshuganas.’ They have a quite sophisticated decision-making process.”

And to return to my original point, compare and contrast the above to this.