President Obama’s address at the United Nations Tuesday sounded at times like an inner debate, Bam vs. O, with too many “on the other hand” clauses to count.
Iran couldn’t be happier.
In a 43-minute speech, Obama managed to tell the UN General Assembly more about the dilemmas facing a leader of the country formerly known as the world’s only superpower than he did about our next moves on Iran (let alone Syria).
But, hey, we know he’s resolute about trying to bring peace to the Mideast.
The United States acts, our president told world leaders, with “a hard-earned humility when it comes to our ability to determine events inside other countries.”
On the other hand, the real danger for the globe is that “America may disengage, creating a vacuum of leadership that no other nation is ready to fill.”
So should America, which is “rightly concerned about issues back home,” intervene in the world or not? Lead, or turn inward?
Apparently, we’ll engage. On the other hand, maybe not.
But inquiring minds need to know, as some of those sitting in the hall have decisions of their own to make.
Like Iran.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani may not have followed every twist in Obama’s arguments: He powwowed with the leader of Fiji as Obama addressed the General Assembly Tuesday morning. Rouhani also skipped a UN luncheon for heads of states that our president attended, because Iranians don’t participate in events where wine is served. And he reportedly snubbed the Obama team’s attempt to orchestrate an unprecedented encounter Tuesday.
So the much anticipated Rouhani-Obama handshake, bro-hug or kiss on the cheek didn’t materialize.
Unlike Obama, Rouhani was very clear in stating his goals in his UN speech Tuesday. He expects to “hear a consistent voice from Washington,” rather than that of the “narrow interests of war-mongering pressure groups.”
Mostly, after repeating the old mantra that Iran won’t seek nuclear weapons because it’s against the religion, Rouhani said he expected an end to sanctions, which he called “Violence, pure and simple.”
Perhaps Obama believes Iran needs to do something, beyond the nice talk. On the other hand, maybe not: Wednesday, foreign ministers of six leading countries will meet with their Iranian counterpart, Javad Zarif, to start discussing nuclear issues.
There, Secretary of State John Kerry will become the highest Washington official since Iran’s 1979 revolution to shake the hand of a Tehran counterpart.
Encouraging signs — but, on the other hand, Obama acknowledged that such diplomatic breakthroughs won’t be easy.
Mutual suspicions run deep, he said: We (read: Obama’s predecessors) interfered in Iran’s affairs and overthrew an Iranian government during the Cold War. They called us names — and have also “taken Americans hostage, killed US troops and civilians and threatened our ally Israel with destruction.”
Speaking of which: Israel’s minister for strategic affairs, Yuval Steinitz, generally praised Obama’s speech — especially the parts that stressed again the American vow to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
Steinitz also noted that Obama vowed to stick by Security Council resolutions — including, presumably, a ban on any Iranian uranium enrichment.
Yet Steinitz, who is close to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, also told me that Iran has done very little to merit radical policy changes: “Rouhani came here to cheat and lie to the whole world. [Israel] won’t help him in that,” he said. Sure enough, while everyone in the room was eager to hear Rouhani’s words, the Israeli seat remained empty.
Back to the “other hands” — since ending Iran’s nuclear quest isn’t the only issue on Obama’s global agenda.
There’s Syria, of course. But Obama’s comments on the bloody civil war had so many “on the other hand” clauses that it was almost incomprehensible.
No, the only issue that matches the Iran problem in our president’s eyes is — you guessed it — the Arab-Israeli conflict.
As Obama said, “Real breakthroughs on these two issues — Iran’s nuclear program and Israeli-Palestinian peace — would have a profound and positive impact on the entire Middle East and North Africa.”
(Israel and Iran are so closely linked in Obama’s mind, in fact, that to illustrate the horrors of Syria’s use of chemical weapons, he talked about “Jews slaughtered in gas chambers, and Iranians poisoned in the many tens of thousands” by Iraq’s chemical weapons.)
But are Iran’s nukes so intimately linked to the vaunted “peace process”?
“We do want to advance peace with the Palestinians,” Steinitz told me. But “the Iranian issue is a danger to the whole world. History will change if Iran gets the bomb. So, no, I wouldn’t have made that connection.”
By making the connection, Obama indicated that he’d resolve the Iranian nuclear issue at roughly the same time that he’d untangle the Mideast’s most famous enmity.
That is, shortly after pigs start to fly.