Simple, writes Tony Badran. President Obama is currently holding a meeting at Camp David with representatives of Saudi Arabia and the neighboring states, the goal of which, according to Badran, is to send the message that Benjamin Netanyahu’s criticisms of the prospective nuclear deal with Iran are unfounded:
The president is focused like a laser on completing the nuclear deal with Iran. For this, he needs to fend off any challenge from Capitol Hill, which is poised to approve legislation that requires him to submit the deal for congressional review. . . .
Netanyahu’s vocal and persuasive opposition has complicated this task. Here is America’s number one regional ally saying this deal is a bad one, and that it poses a mortal danger to Israel’s security. The White House devised a two-step counterattack. Step one is to tarnish Netanyahu’s brand. The White House and its friends in the media depict Netanyahu as a bigot with respect to the Palestinians and a warmonger with respect to Iran. He is ruling over a right-wing coalition that clings to power by the narrowest of margins. His opinions are, in short, unrepresentative and unrespectable.
Step two of the counterattack is to tarnish congressional opponents of the deal with the brush of Netanyahu’s “extremism.” . . .
This counterattack is the essential context for understanding the dialogue with the Gulf Arabs. President Obama needed only two simple things from the summit. First, he sought to look the part of the concerned ally, so as to insulate himself from the criticism that his Iran deal sells out America’s allies. Second, he intended to secure a public statement of support—however mild—for his nuclear diplomacy. Even tepid support would allow him to argue that Netanyahu represents only a small group of unreasonable and reckless hardliners who are pushing the U.S. to war.
The president’s plan, however, seems to have backfired, as evidenced by the fact that the kings of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain declined to attend the summit in person. “Every sober observer,” Badran concludes, “now knows that the Arab leaders are just as dismayed by Obama’s Iran diplomacy as Netanyahu is.”
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