In the midst of what has been clearly the last stage of campaigning prior to the United States presidential elections, President Obama had obviously decided to treat the proceedings of the 68th UN General Assembly as subordinate to his campaign requirements and, some may have felt, something of a sideshow to what many Americans consider the greatest show on earth. But two incidents, one of which, viz, the domestic fallout from the assassination of US Ambassador in Libya, Christopher Stephens we referred to editorially last week, and the second – what can be called a major verbal assault on the General Assembly and explicitly on US diplomacy by the Israeli Prime Minister – clearly put paid to Obama’s intentions.
In the course of last week, the United States government has found itself doing what amounts to a somersault in its interpretation of the death of its Ambassador to Libya. Later suggestions emanating from the government suggest a linkage of al Qaeda to that incident, and raise the question of the competence of American security and intelligence arrangements in a country hardly settled following the NATO intervention there to remove Gaddafi.
The Mitt Romney campaign has obviously been trying to milk this issue for as much as it might be worth, given a general perception of Romney’s lack of sensibility on international affairs matters. This has meant suggesting that, among other things, the administration has not been sufficiently sensitive to the possibility that al Qaeda, still smarting from the killing of Osama bin Laden, might have been on the hunt for a major revenge killing. Obama’s publicists have since been kept busy with rebuttals.
The President had in fact decided that, given the requirements of his campaign schedule, he would meet no visiting heads of state or government on this occasion of the UNGA opening session. But his plans have been somewhat up-ended by the capture of world attention by a dramatic presentation by Benjamin Netanyahu seeking to persuade world public opinion, and perhaps more importantly at this time, American public opinion, that the Iranian government is much nearer to producing a nuclear weapon than either the United States government or the International Atomic Energy Agency have been willing to admit.
Specialists in Israel itself almost immediately responded to this foray by Netanyahu, by insisting that he was exaggerating the situation of Iran’s preparedness which, in their opinion, could not be explained by the simplistic drawings and rapid explanations that the Prime Minister provided. But an immediate response was the US President’s concession to Netanyahu of a telephone call, no doubt seeking to reassure him that American intelligence is well up to par in their assessments of the stages to which the Iranians have reached.
The President will have been well aware that Netanhayu has been on a not so subtle campaign to influence the election campaign in Romney’s favour, given the continual bending backward towards the Israeli position that the Republican candidate has been adopting for some time now. In one sense, the Democrats have been sensitive to these attempts, though somewhat contemptuous of them, given a widespread view that Romney’s approach to foreign policy issues has been somewhat gauche. Indeed, what we can call his campaign visit to Israel that preceded a similar visit to Britain was marred by the variety of gaffes that Romney made there, inducing even the Conservative government of David Cameron to be dismissive of his comments.
Nonetheless, Netanyahu obviously has believed that a strategy of seeking to force Obama to be more vocally sensitive to the Israeli position on the Iranian nuclear experiments, may influence not only the presidential elections, but perhaps more importantly, the elections to the House of Representatives and the Senate. Netanyahu, like other observers, will have noticed the extent to which, over the last four years, the Republicans have been able to either force concessions from Obama, or block legislation that the administration was proposing largely on domestic matters. So he would undoubtedly be hoping that a stronger pro-Republican balance in the Congress can influence a more pro-Israeli position on the part of the administration, even if Obama were to be victorious in November.
As expected, President Ahmadinejad has used the Israeli attacks on his administration to be even more denunciatory of the (NATO and other) critics of his country’s nuclear policy, and of the “Zionists” now seen as Iran’s main enemies (during the Shah’s regime, Israel and Iran were close allies). In fact, it is more likely the case that the Iranians are more concerned about the increasing pace of sanctions and boycotts of their country’s exports, in particular oil, than the pleas of Netanyahu for a bombing of nuclear installations in Iran. The dispute with Iran has forced the Americans to strengthen their diplomacy in the Middle East, particularly in ensuring cooperation in protecting the Straits of Hormuz whose blockage by Iran would create a major economic crisis, beyond the dimension of the current one which the North Atlantic powers seem unable to handle.
Instead, therefore, contrary to what Netanyahu may want, the US whether under Obama, or an elected Romney more conscious of the limitations on American unilateral foreign policy-making, is likely to simply want to continue to reinforce the boycott, seek to ensure that countries which are sympathetic, for whatever reason, to the Iranians are constrained to restrict their assistance to the country’s regime and economy, and hope that domestic pressure will induce a change of policy in Iran.
Of course, the question may be raised as to whether the structure of the Iranian political system permits the exertion of pressure from outsiders, or even domestic opponents of the regime, as would be expected in a country practising more orthodox (western influenced) constitutional systems.
It is still unclear to many observers what levers of politics in Iran influence persons and groups not as homogenous as might be thought , but in continuing contention with each other, subject to what is, after all, a system based on theocratic authority that continues to have the dominant influence in policy-making.
