John Kerry and the New Term

The new U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry, will start a ten-day tour of Europe and the Middle East this week. Ankara is one of the nine capitals that Kerry will visit. Without a doubt, Syria will be the hardest topic on the agenda in Kerry’s meetings in both Europe and the Middle East. What is interesting is that during this difficult period Obama and Kerry want to devote as much time to the Arab-Israeli issue as they do to Syria.

Under normal conditions, Israel would be the first stop on Kerry’s foreign trip. However, when Obama announced unexpectedly last month that he would visit Israel in March, Kerry’s plans changed. Kerry and Obama will go to Israel together next month.

At first glance, this situation strengthens the assumption that Obama will engage in a serious attempt at Arab-Israeli peace during his second term. As is well known, in recent history American presidents in their second term have tried in vain to make their mark on history with the Arab-Israeli issue. It is possible that Obama, who is entering his second term, is going to try his luck again. How suitable are developments on the ground for this? In short: not very suitable. However, Washington has positively greeted the results of last month’s election [in Israel], in which a far-right victory was nervously awaited, but which in fact appears to have brought a broad-based coalition to power. At the same time, conditions on the Palestinian front must also improve for a peace agreement. On this front, the disunity of Fatah and Hamas continues. Furthermore, with the current state of affairs in Syria and the political chaos in Egypt, a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace agreement does not look very realistic.

In that case, why did Obama make the decision to go to Israel? On top of all this, the trip comes at a time when the U.S. is slowly extricating itself from the Middle East and is instead turning its focus to the Asia Pacific region. In my estimation, there are two reasons for Obama’s trip to Israel.

The first is Iran. Recently, in some circles in Washington, a pessimistic analysis of Iran has been made. According to this analysis, the religious leader in Iran, Khamenei, does not want to come to an agreement with the United States over negotiations on the nuclear issue. According to this analysis, Khamenei believes that by sitting at the bargaining table with the United States, the Islamic regime in Iran would be entering a period of decline. Khamenei, rather than weakening his regime by conceding on the nuclear issue, would prefer to provoke an aerial assault carried out by Israel and the United States on Iran’s nuclear facilities. From the point of view of Israel and the United States this is a trap, because an assault of this level on Iran would strengthen a regime that is weakening. After such an attack, the people of Iran would inevitably react in a nationalist fashion and rally tightly behind the regime. Obama does not want to fall into this trap. However, persuading Israel is not easy. It is possible that for exactly this reason, Obama wants to go in person to Israel to get Netanyahu on his side on this issue. The second reason for Obama’s trip to Israel is that he did not visit during his first term. Because the expectations for Arab-Israeli peace are low nowadays, Obama can carry out this trip without creating an impression of failure. This could be a trip that has the chance to kill two birds with one stone.

In conclusion, Kerry is starting a new term with all of these challenges and, unfortunately, Syria is not the only topic that requires immediate attention. It is important not to forget the Iran-Israel front.