WASHINGTON — House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) appeared to be have pulled off a masterful political victory against the Obama administration Wednesday when he revealed that he had invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address Congress on the dangers of the administration’s negotiations with Iran.
Coming a day after President Barack Obama threatened to veto new Iran-related sanctions legislation that he said could harm the negotiations, Boehner’s move looked like a smart way to reinforce support for such bills — a priority for the Republican-led Congress — by showing that the U.S.’s top ally in the region supported them.
Then things started to fall apart.
Secretary of State John Kerry, fresh off his fumbling on the issue of French solidarity, pulled off a diplomatic bank shot by using a different part of the Israeli government against Boehner. Asked about the invitation at a press conference with European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, Kerry diplomatically said Netanyahu was welcome in the U.S. any time — and proceeded to both steal Boehner’s thunder and turn news coverage in a different direction.
“In Israel, one of the top intelligence –- one of the top intelligence personnel within the Israeli intelligence field –- I won’t name names, but this person was asked directly by a congressional delegation that visited there over the weekend what the effect of sanctions would be. And this person answered that it would be like throwing a grenade into the process,” Kerry said. “So we’re asking people to be responsible here, and then let’s have a good, responsible debate about what the best way to proceed is.”
Kerry’s comment altered the conversation, making it about whether Republicans want to torpedo nuclear talks with Iran. The Obama administration describes the negotiations as the only way to ensure that Iran cannot gain a nuclear weapon to threaten the very country Boehner says the administration is failing: Israel. Kerry’s message: It’s Republicans, and the Democrats who support them on new sanctions, who would fail Israel by antagonizing Iran and destroying the chance of a peaceful resolution to the years-long controversy over Tehran’s nuclear program.
Within hours of Kerry’s comment, Bloomberg View columnists Josh Rogin and Eli Lake were out with an explosive story that said lawmakers present at the briefing with Israeli intelligence and staffers who were informed about it confirmed Kerry’s comment. They added that two senior U.S. officials had told them members of the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, “shared its view with the administration that if legislation that imposed a trigger leading to future sanctions on Iran was signed into law, it would cause the talks to collapse.”
The question of what the Mossad said and how it is being interpreted is important because it forces lawmakers to be open about their intentions. Are they simply worried that Iran will renege on the agreement, as they say, pointing to the fact that the proposed sanctions would only come into effect if there is a violation of a nuclear deal? Or are they pushing sanctions because they espouse the more extreme views of Iran critics like newly-minted <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/22/cotton-regime-change-iran_n_6527462.html?1421975631
” target=”_hplink”>Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), who said earlier this month that ending the negotiations was the goal of the sanctions and that the U.S. should prepare for regime change in Tehran by bolstering its military capabilities? That belligerent stance is not one that most pro-sanctions lawmakers want to be associated with, given the political liabilities involved with recommending even more U.S. intervention in the Middle East.
The day-after story ended up being less about what Netanyahu would say to Congress — and how that speech may influence sanctions talk in Washington or electoral politics in Tel Aviv, given that Netanyahu is up for a fight to maintain power later this year — than about a perceived rift between the Mossad and Netanyahu.
The suggestion that Israeli officials were advising U.S. lawmakers on how to save the diplomatic process seemed out of step with the prime minister’s skepticism about Obama’s approach to the nuclear negotiations. In fact, the Mossad comments gave the administration a new talking point in convincing lawmakers to oppose sanctions, Lake and Rogin claimed. The Jerusalem Post quoted Israeli officials calling the Kerry’s revelation “Obama’s revenge” for the Boehner invite.
The Mossad’s leader issued a statement Thursday denying that he was opposed to sanctions, and calling them “the sticks necessary for reaching a good deal with Iran.” He said that he spoke about “throwing a grenade,” as Kerry had said, he meant that new sanctions would mean “creating a temporary crisis in the negotiations at the end of which talks would resume under improved conditions” — seemingly giving pro-sanctions lawmakers the ability to once again call themselves supporters of smart nuclear diplomacy.
Still, the story had shifted — and all Boehner was left with was a promise for a Netanyahu address at the time of the annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference in early March, by which point the administration has said it hoped to already have a framework for the deal.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu got his own rebuke as the White House revealed that it would not meet with him during that March trip. “We do not see heads of state or candidates in close proximity to their elections, so as to avoid the appearance of influencing a democratic election in a foreign country,” said National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan.
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