By Shahzad Masood Roomi
It is obvious that President Obama wants to keep the Iranian nuclear program in check through international monitoring by IAEA and multilateral agreements with Tehran (with 5+1 group) whereas Israeli PM is seeking a direct approach from the US to address the 'problem' like US did take on Iraq during the Bush era over WMDs. But the aftermath of second and protracted Gulf-war has forced the US to avoid any new high intensity clash in the region. Israelis will always analyze the regional geopolitics from their security point of view whereas the White House is to bound to contemplate every possible global and regional contingency as a potential outcome of the US policy decisions. This difference in approach is once again visible over Iranian nuclear program. Both allies have wide difference of opinion and strategy.
But during the Netanyahu's regime, this difference of strategy and opinion is not limited to Iran, there are host of other issues where both the countries differ sharply on strategy. Now even Israeli support lobbying groups want cancellation of a planned speech in the US congress by Israeli PM. The speech will be made in the first week of March when Israeli Prime Minster would be visiting the US. The US based Israeli policy experts and lobbyists consider the planned speech of Israel premier as 'disrespect to the US president' and are demanding a cancellation.
“The only thing that Netanyahu should have done was to create a strong, intimate, holy alliance with the person who actually decides, the US president. But Netanyahu has both failed to prevent Iran from becoming nuclear and has also destroyed the alliance with America. Not a bad output for a term and a half”, wrote Ben Caspit, a commentator, in Ma’ariv, a newspaper while terming the US-Israel relationship “more important than Dimona”, pointing towards Israel’s unannounced nuclear capabilities.
Evidently, the complexities of Middle Eastern geopolitics are changing the strategic mindset both in Washington and Jerusalem. The US has suffered more in political and economic sense as result of two long wars after 9/11 whereas Israel as emerged stronger and more aggressive in the region after chaos in Iraq and Syria. After recent incident of burning a Jordanian pilot alive in Syria and Jordanian reaction over the incident, Israel finds the environment conducive to adopt a more aggressive approach in Syria against Iran and Hezbollah while the US understands that if Iran also becomes a war zone the battlefield for their forces will stretch from Hindukush in Afghanistan to Western border of Iraq with a possibility of it further expanding till Syrian coast of Latakia and this is something the US would always like to avoid due to obvious unbearable economic and political cost of such a war.
Irrespective to what we see in mainstream media about US-Israel strategic alliance, the latest developments in these bilateral relations show that diplomacy and geopolitics are extremely delicate statecraft and things are not the same as they meet the eye. But considering history of US-Israel relations, this would not be the first time when both have difference over Middle Eastern geopolitics.
Though this acute ebb in bilateral ties is nothing new. Various contentious issues in the region affected the ties but this time there are many factors of regional politics which are not being fully controlled by either of these countries and this is why the US is insisting upon more cautious approach while the Israelis remain stubborn like always. In 1970s, Israeli policies forced the US administration of that time to put the bilateral relations in reassess and halted the military support as well.
Now when Syrian government has offered negotiations to Israel and a debate is going on within Israeli government, it would be interesting to see what Israeli prim minster has to say to the US Congress on his upcoming visit. And even more intriguing would be the reaction by Obama administration.
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