Americans concerned about the implications for Israel in the looming nuclear deal with Iran – and there are more of us than those who are not – cannot but be dismayed by comments President Obama made in an interview this past Sunday with Tom Friedman of The New York Times.
The president said he understood why Israel’s prime minister had reservations about the almost-done nuclear deal between the P5+1 and Iran because Israel was more vulnerable to an Iranian attack than the United States. He acknowledged “Israel’s belief that given the tragic history of the Jewish people, they can’t be dependent solely on us [the United States] for their own security.”
He went on to say that the United States would defend Israel if it were “attacked by any state.” He even described his chief congressional opponent on the Iran negotiations, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, as “somebody who is sincerely concerned about this issue and is a good and decent man, and my hope is that we can find something that allows Congress to express itself but does not encroach on traditional presidential prerogatives – and ensures that, if in fact we get a good deal, that we can go ahead and implement it.”
By any measure this represents a tectonic about-face from Mr. Obama’s unrelenting savaging of Israel, Prime Minister Netanyahu, and other opponents of the president’s Iran policy in the aftermath of Mr. Netanyahu’s speech before Congress in which, to rousing applause, he fully aired Israel’s problems with the published elements of the proposed deal. So forgive us if we don’t give full credence to the president’s latest sentiments, which obviously are part of his effort to sell his widely criticized détente with Iran.
How much can Israel be expected to rely on the promises of someone who so recently – and quite publicly – toyed with the idea of abandoning the American policy of protecting Israel in the United Nations, knowing full well that to do so would open up the floodgates of international challenges to the legitimacy of the Jewish state? And let’s not overlook the president’s seething anger over Mr. Netanyahu’s efforts to make the case that the nuclear deal with Iran presented a threat to Israel’s survival. Such behavior underscores the need to take his promises with a storehouse of salt.
We believe the only hope for a wise deal with Iran lies in a full vetting by Congress and its opportunity to vote it up or down.