Prime Minister’s Netanyahu’s Suicidal Mission

Benjamin Netanyahu’s Washington mission is unprecedented not only in U.S. history but also in that of world diplomacy.

Although it happens that foreign leaders speak before the U.S. Congress — as the Israeli prime minister did last Tuesday — it is mainly on friendly or solemn occasions. A visitor may be permitted to address the Congress as a gesture of acknowledgement to the service of their country or when commemorating positive changes and events around the world. That happened in case of Lech Wałęsa, Nelson Mandela and Václav Havel. Sometimes permission is granted to show moral support, like in last year’s case of Petro Poroschenko, the president of Ukraine. Other times it may be granted in order to emphasize the importance of unity between America and a visiting leader’s country, as in the case of Queen Elizabeth II or Chancellor Angela Merkel.

However, no foreign leader has ever before delivered a speech to the Congress that would aim to criticize American foreign policy. Neither has any foreign leader ever given a speech at the invitation of the opposition party and not that of the president, which is exactly what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has done.

Mr. Netanyahu’s view is, of course, different — he believes that his speech is a fight for the survival of the Israeli nation, which allegedly, according to Mr. Netanyahu’s alarming comments, is threatened by the Iranian plan of a “nuclear nightmare.” In the meantime, the weak and naïve President Obama, instead of bombing Iranian nuclear power plants, negotiates with the vile ayatollahs, and the result of these negotiations is likely to be the consent for Iran to continue its nuclear program. According to the information leaked, meetings due in Vienna, Geneva and Munich will produce a final agreement, to be revealed by the end of March.

What is the content of this agreement? Apparently Iran, where 15,000gas centrifuges used to produce enriched uranium have already been installed, will get permission to keep some of them (between 3,000 and 5,000, according to the information leaked). Therefore, in theory, Iran will still be able to develop a nuclear bomb (uranium turned into explosive will just require a longer centrifuge time than uranium used as nuclear fuel). What is worse, the limit restrictions on Iran’s centrifuges will be lifted in 10 years’ time.

Netanyahu considers such a compromise scandalous. In his view Iran should dismantle all centrifuges, as unrealistic as it may be. The people of Iran — even those who do not support the ayatollahs — think that any nation should have the right to use the benefits of science. Iran quitting its nuclear program would mean a humiliation, similar to the 1953 one, when Iranian Prime Minister Mosaddegh, after nationalizing Iranian oil deposits which stripped BP of profits, was assassinated by CIA and British Secret Intelligence only for the throne of Iran to be taken over by a shah, who was thought to be a puppet of the West.

Above that it would prove difficult to make Iran give up its program, as Mr. Netanyahu demands. In accordance with the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons, any country in the world has a right to uranium enrichment, provided that programs remain under U.N. control. Iran complies with the treaty, as all of its stored and manufactured deposits are controlled by the U.N. (by means of inspections, monitoring cameras, measuring instruments etc.).

This situation leaves the West two options: to agree for Iran to keep centrifuges, fewer in quantity and under stricter control, or to bomb them. President Obama chooses the first option, which is clearly a source of despair for Mr. Netanyahu. Hence the mutual aversion between the two leaders. A few years back journalists overheard Mr. Obama say to President Sarkozy, “You’re fed up with him, but I have to deal with him even more often than you.” Such comments are not necessary though, to notice that the relationship between Mr. Obama and Mr. Netanyahu is pretty cold. President Obama, if on friendly terms, calls other countries’ leaders by their first names, e.g. Angela (Merkel), David (Cameron), whereas the Israeli leader is referred to as “Mr. Netanyahu.”

The situation reached its culminating point after it emerged that Ron Dermer, the Israeli ambassador to the United States, had arranged Mr. Netanyahu’s arrival with Republican congressmen rather than consult the White House. The U.S. president reacted by announcing that he would not meet Mr. Netanyahu while Joe Biden, the vice president who customarily attends joint sessions of Congress, said he would be on his trip to Central America. Several other congressmen planned to boycott Mr. Netanyahu’s speech, as they considered it an insult to Mr. Obama. In the U.S., the president leads foreign affairs and not the Congress, therefore, it is the president who should be inviting foreign leaders, or at least be consulted with regard to such invitations.