Was Netanyahu Wrong to Fight the Iran Deal?

Now that the nuclear deal with Iran has been completed, and it is unlikely that there will be sufficient votes in Congress to derail it, some have wondered if the Israeli prime minister erred in his vocal opposition, hurting U.S.-Israel relations without successfully stopping the deal. A similar criticism has been leveled against AIPAC. Elliott Abrams finds such criticism utterly without merit:

Netanyahu has always seen the issue of Iran’s nuclear-weapons program as existential for Israel. In that case, how could he not try to change the political calculus in the United States? Should he have pulled his punches, said less, made this a smaller issue—not tried, that is, to win the argument?

[Furthermore], Netanyahu has won the argument: most Americans are highly skeptical of the Iran deal and don’t like it, and it will be disapproved in both houses of Congress, [although the president will surely override congressional disapproval]. In the last months opinion has shifted against the deal, and Netanyahu can take some credit for that. But his critics don’t blame him for losing, they blame him for trying. . . .

As for relations with the United States, there are no polls suggesting any damage at all. Americans don’t appear to blame an Israeli prime minister who argues for his country’s security. . . So what are we talking about here? We are talking about damaging relations with the Obama administration. To that argument there are two answers. First, it’s a diminishing problem, because we are already in the election season. . . . Second, it is also hard to believe that relations with Obama will actually be worsened—only because they are already so bad. . . .

Netanyahu has taught a lesson that’s valuable for the future: an Israeli prime minister who is convinced of his position may take on such a fight even if everyone predicts he will lose it. He or she will not shy away due to political calculations and vote-counting predictions, a very good precedent when matters of national security are at risk. That last calculation applies to AIPAC as well.

Read more at Weekly Standard

More about: AIPAC, Barack Obama, Benjamin Netanyahu, Iran nuclear program, Israel & Zionism, US-Israel relations

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF