In the weeks preceding Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's congressional address yesterday, the subject received immense media attention. In point of fact, the event was relatively unimportant.
Of significance is the context surrounding the speech. Primarily, the Obama administration is in ongoing negotiations with Iran concerning the latter's nuclear program. (This despite there being no evidence or indicated interest that Iran is planning to move in the direction of a bomb.) As a result, Israel's leadership is in a panic, as a US-Iran agreement will likely precipitate a shift in the regional power dynamic; how much of one is impossible to say. If Iran becomes something of a US client—as it was before 1979—this will likely diminish Israel's prestige as one of the "twin pillars" in the region. Saudi Arabia, the other pillar, is also disgruntled with the US-Iran talks, for similar reasons.
Therefore, Netanyahu's speech had nothing to do with his stated concerns that Tehran "poses a grave threat, not only to Israel, but also the peace of the entire world." That Tehran seeks to develop a nuclear warhead and launch it in Tel Aviv's general direction. Instead, the prime minister is anxious about the White House's potentially game-changing diplomacy.
Furthermore, elections in Israel are fast approaching, scheduled to take place on March 17. By visiting Washington and dramatizing the issue of Iran, it is clear that Netanyahu wishes to emphasize the subject of foreign affairs and deemphasize the economic woes currently an election issue in Israel. Into the bargain, discussion in the Israeli press suggests the election could go either way. What took place in front of Congress yesterday was both a campaign speech and melodramatic attempt to marshal Republican and lobby forces against the White House talking with the Iranians.
Predictably, the speech itself was rife with inaccurate and/or misleading points and doesn't merit serious attention. The prime minister invoked Biblical imagery to link the present to the ancient past, inventing a connection where there is none. The prime minister mentioned the Nazi Holocaust in the same sentence as the Iranian regime, inventing a connection where there is none. And the prime minister compared ISIS's and Iran's regional agendas, inventing a connection where there is none.
Also among Netanyahu's remarks was the following statement: "Iran's goons in Gaza [Hamas], its lackeys in Lebanon [Hizballah], its revolutionary guards on the Golan Heights are clutching Israel with three tentacles of terror." What the prime minister neglected to mention is that his country presently and illegally occupies both Gaza and the Golan Heights. With regard to South Lebanon, Israel occupied the area from its assault on that country in 1982, which claimed the lives of perhaps 20,000 people, to the year 2000. It was out of this setting that the guerrilla organization Hizballah emerged. Netanyahu's imagery is dramatic and alarming until the present and historical circumstances are included in the picture.
In summary, Obama and company don't like Netanyahu. Neither did the Clinton administration. However, the "special relationship" remains intact and US support and diplomatic protection of Israel continues unabated. Yet, it is clear the White House is interested in Iran. And when the White House wants something with regard to matters of state, lesser entities such as Israel and its American lobby are more or less powerless. The warming of US-Iran relations is just the most recent example of how and why the Mearsheimer-Walt thesis concerning the Israel lobby doesn't accurately describe reality.
It always bears recollection and repetition that in the last one hundred years the number of countries that Iran has invaded is zero. The number of nuclear weapons Iran possesses is zero. The number of foreign territories and/or countries Iran occupies is zero. Israel, on the other hand, can make none of these claims. Israel has started wars throughout its history, is an occupier, possesses nuclear weapons, is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and refuses IAEA inspections of its Dimona nuclear facility.
In no way is this to suggest the leadership in Tehran is angelic. But as a former Israeli military chief of staff worded it: "the Iranian leadership is composed of very rational people." The military and intelligence communities in Israel and the United States do not view Iran as an irrational actor perched and ready to strike. Routinely, the conclusions of these communities bear little resemblance to what we are commonly told. And the reason for this is simple: they are looking at the world in an informed, historical, lucid manner.
