Is Netanyahu manipulating Obama?

What was the point of this week’s meeting between Israeli and U.S. leaders? asked Akiva Eldar in the Tel Aviv Ha’aretz. It’s not as if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was going to hear anything from President Obama that he hadn’t heard already from his own advisers and from top U.S. officials. Obama simply reiterated that an Israeli attack on Iran before the U.S. presidential election in November would be “tantamount to attacking the incumbent president.” And Obama probably told Netanyahu that he would be “prepared to pay generously” for a “time-out”—presumably by ignoring the festering Palestinian issue.

But this is not some political game, said The Jerusalem Post in an editorial. Netanyahu’s decisions about Iran are based on considerations of Israel’s security, just as Obama is driven by concerns about U.S. security. American pundits on the Left say that Obama is bowing to Israeli pressure with his tough talk on Iran, while those on the Right say that he is just pretending to be hawkish to woo Jewish voters. But the truth is that Obama gets it. He knows that a nuclear Iran is “a cardinal threat to essential U.S. interests.” And he agrees with the Israeli prime minister that the two countries should use all means, including military ones, to prevent Iran from becoming nuclear. The only major difference between them is the timetable: Obama is willing to wait longer to see if sanctions work.

That’s the crux of the problem, said Ron Ben-Yishai in the Tel Aviv Yedioth Ahronoth. Obama says he won’t let Iran possess nuclear weapons—but Israel says that “defining the red line this way would in fact enable the Iranians to become a nuclear power.” If Iran is allowed to develop the ability to produce lots of highly enriched uranium, it will be able to build a bomb within six months whenever it feels like it. The U.S. won’t be able to prevent that because, “as opposed to uranium enrichment, the development of the actual weapon can be hidden relatively easily.” Remember, the Americans didn’t know it when India, for instance, built its first bombs—the telltale sign in that case was a test nuclear explosion. So the crucial question is whether Netanyahu persuaded Obama on this point.

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This isn’t a matter of persuasion, said Sefi Rachlevsky in Ha’aretz. Netanyahu’s plan is to “drag the United States into war.” Iran already has a fortified underground enrichment complex, at Fordo. No Israeli strike can wipe that out, so if Israel attacks Iran unilaterally, all it can do is delay the nuclear program. In the aftermath, “a revenge-hungry Iran” will redouble its efforts and go nuclear within two years. The U.S. knows this, too. An Israeli strike, then, is meant to “compel Obama to send the only military force capable of destroying Iran’s nuclear program.” Such a war would be disastrous. Our only hope is that Israel’s generals and retired generals “make it clear to Netanyahu that it can’t be done his way. You don’t gamble Israel’s security on conspiracies.”