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Obama And Livni

The news that Israeli Foreign Minister and Kadima leader Tzipi Livni has warned that negotiating with Iran would signal “weakness” is unfortunate for a couple of reasons, but it may not be as significant as the report makes it out to be.  Livni may be stating her real position here, in which case there is going […]

The news that Israeli Foreign Minister and Kadima leader Tzipi Livni has warned that negotiating with Iran would signal “weakness” is unfortunate for a couple of reasons, but it may not be as significant as the report makes it out to be.  Livni may be stating her real position here, in which case there is going to be much greater political pressure on the Obama administration at home not to undermine or go against Livni’s government in the event that she becomes prime minister after elections in February.  Her timing is also not very good (not that she would be concerned about how her remarks fit into Obama’s transition process), since it comes on the heels of the Russian announcement of the intention to deploy missiles to Kaliningrad, which is being interpreted in establishment circles as evidence of the first foreign challenge to the incoming administration.  Never mind that the Russians are primarily responding to foolish Bush administration actions.  Livni’s remarks are  going to lend support to opponents of Obama’s proposal to enter into negotiations with Iran and Syria, who will start stitching together a pattern of foreign states’ actions and allied skepticism of his proposals to show that Obama’s plans are impractical, dangerous and so on.  Numerous Post editorials will lay out how Obama must adapt to reality and will have to abandon this cornerstone of what some of his backers have dubbed the Obama Doctrine.  Presumably, Obama will simply ignore all of this as he should, but it still presents something of a problem. 

Those on the left in America who want Obama to focus early on Israel and Palestine are probably not going to want to see a major disagreement between Obama and Livni.  Livni would be, if victorious next year, the leader of the only viable coalition that would plausibly be willing to negotiate with the Palestinians.  However, there is some reason to think that Livni’s framing of negotiation as a signal of weakness–a somewhat odd position for a Kadima foreign minister to take–is a necessary electoral maneuver to deflect the inevitable attacks from Netanyahu.  She might not be as opposed to talks as strongly as these remarks indicate.

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