With Iran’s offer of a new round of negotiations with the 5+1 group (the members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany), the Obama Administration, according to the Russian daily newspaper Kommersant, has sent a letter to Russia to warn the Iranian authorities that this would be the last opportunity.
But according to reactions from the State Department, the information advanced by the Russian paper does not correspond with the truth, in as much as the United States did not use the expression “last opportunity,” although they reaffirmed keeping all options on the table. The Russian paper had raised the hypothesis that the Obama administration is being blackmailed by a pro-Israeli lobbying group, stressing the fact that President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu both attended the last meeting of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee* in Washington.
The American warning — to the effect that the Iranian authorities need to completely cooperate and show willingness to open the doors of all suspected sites to the inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) or be attacked within months — could be an incorrect interpretation of the policy of leaving all options on the table. It is true that the prime minister of Israel has requested that the Obama administration use the language of military threat to force Iran to cooperate more with negotiations about its nuclear program. But Barack Obama argues that sanctions and diplomacy have played a sufficient role in forcing Iran to back down on its nuclear ambitions.
In a year in which the American presidency is at stake and further progress in the Iranian nuclear program is suspected, Barack Obama may resort to the use of military force or may continue betting on the diplomatic route. This latter option, which the Israeli leadership argues is ineffective in halting the Iranian nuclear program, could lead to the American president losing the considerable support of the Jewish lobby and risking an electoral defeat. When the Republican camp, in the persons of Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney, is seen to have politicians ready to take the military route to stop Iran from having nuclear weapons, Obama’s diplomatic path could suffer a rapid change.
Since his return from Washington, where he sought concerted positions with the American government, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been seeking to prepare public opinion in his country for a war against Iran. Netanyahu is trying to convince the Israeli public that the Iranian threat is tangible and existential, and there is only one efficient way to stop it and avoid a “second Holocaust”: an Israeli military strike against the nuclear infrastructures of Iran. The idea of Israel blackmailing the United States, as advanced by the Russian newspaper and already disavowed by the United States, has to do with Netanyahu’s insistence that his country reserves the right to attack and not wait for others.
The Israeli leader asks the members of his government to reject allegations that his country is too weak to enter into a war alone against a regional power such as Iran and that it needs to rely on the United States. At a time when exchanges of threats of attacks and reprisals are increasing, it was recommended that the Obama administration choose negotiations rather than the language of war. The date and the place of this new round of discussions between Iran and the 5+1 group has not yet been set, although given the present climate of pre-war, many doubts have arisen over whether an outcome that will satisfy all parties is possible.
Just as Israel and the United States have all options on the table, so warn the Iranian authorities: the ancient Persian Empire also says it has its options on the table. Iran states to those who wish to exchange threats that it has prepared more than 11,000 missiles to launch against Israel and American interests in the region, in case of an attack by one or both of the countries. Benjamin Netanyahu aims to show his compatriots that he is faithfully following in the footsteps of Menachem Begin (the prime minister who destroyed the Iraqi nuclear reactors in 1981) and to exempt himself from going down in history as the person who permitted “Holocaust II.”
*Translator’s Note: The American Israel Public Affairs Committee is a lobbying group that advocates pro-Israel policies to the Congress and executive branch of the United States.
Washington has danced itself into the danger zone — not because Obama fears losing Jewish votes but rather because he fears the power of the Zionist lobby to launch an anti-Obama campaign in the run-up to the November election.
We are talking here about a well-heeled conservative Jewish establishment, not the vast majority of American Jews. This is no antisemitic Jewish conspiracy about control of the media but rather the recognition that the Jewish establishment has better access to the media than a lot of other influential groups. The New York Times alone could torpedo the Obama campaign — and Obama is acutely aware of that.