Is Netanyahu ready for Biden?
If Biden is elected — as of this writing, he appeared close but was not quire there — Netanyahu can still thank the good luck that saved him from a “blue wave” and left the Senate in Republican hands. “As long as the Senate is Republican, Netanyahu is all set,” a source in the prime minister’s circle told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. “He maneuvered an impatient, young [President Barack] Obama for eight years, he will not have a hard time maneuvering Biden, especially as Biden and Netanyahu have enjoyed a truly friendly relationship for decades. They will get along. It will not be a passionate affair as things were with Trump, but it will be totally bearable. And anyway, Biden is unlikely to have much time and patience for the Middle East with the coronavirus pandemic, tensions with China and [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s bullying.”
The elephant in the room is the Iranian issue. Trump delivered on Netanyahu’s rosiest dreams in this regard. He pulled the United States out of the nuclear deal with Iran and followed it with a policy of “maximum pressure” on Tehran. “Trump and Biden, both, seem to be planning to enter into negotiations with Iran if elected — the question is the goal and the style,” a former senior Israeli defense source told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity.
In other words, Israel believes Trump will enter negotiations “Trump style.” He will not lift sanctions on Iran or does so only symbolically. “He believes in conducting negotiations from a position of power and applying pressure on the rival,” the security source said in analyzing Trump’s style. “Whereas Biden would consider goodwill gestures and perhaps an easing of sanctions as a means to generate a positive climate for renewed negotiations.”
What counts is the bottom line. “Trump could lose interest, as was the case with his negotiations with North Korea,” the senior Israeli diplomatic source noted. “He could even strive to win the Nobel Peace Prize at any cost and end up with an Iran agreement very similar to the original one. With Biden, it is hard to tell,” the source conceded. “What we know for sure is that Biden will not accept a nuclear Iran either. We hope Biden will bring an improved nuclear agreement — long term — which will plug some of the holes in the first one.”
Would Trump or Biden use force against Iran if negotiations fail? This is yet another question that the best minds in Israel’s defense and intelligence agencies are trying to answer, without much success. The Foreign Ministry and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are engaged in a long-running argument about Trump. Foreign Ministry experts say Trump only uses forces if it can be done in one shot, on a limited, local basis. He did give the order to take down Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Qasem Soleimani, but almost in the same breath ordered a drawdown of thousands of US troops from Syria and the Middle East. Whenever a longer-term use of force with entanglement potential is discussed, he is not on board. The IDF did not see it quite that way. Trump’s unpredictable nature, according to the security and intelligence analysts, does not rule out a possible decision on a military adventure against Iran.
As for Biden, the Democrat, the situation is no less complex. “Biden is not Obama,” the senior Israeli diplomatic source said. “Netanyahu’s nightmare is of a Biden in Obama’s clothing. But that is nowhere near the truth. Biden graduated from the school of hard knocks, he is somewhere in the middle between Obama’s peacenik liberalism and the Bush family’s aggressiveness. If pushed to the edge, he could well use force.”
In Biden does, indeed, move into the Oval Office, no one in Jerusalem will have much homework to prepare. “We know all the president’s people like the back of our hand,” said a top diplomatic official on condition of anonymity. “Names such as Tony Blinken [Biden’s top foreign policy aide], Michele Flournoy [slated for the Pentagon], Jake Sullivan, Dennis Ross, Martin Indyk [all former diplomats and/or foreign policy advisers], and second-tier people like Nick and Bill Burns, Ilan Goldberg, all these people know us, know the Middle East and the issues on the agenda for at least two decades. Everything will run like clockwork from the get go, they are expected to hit the ground running.” The two administrations will differ strategically in at least one sense. “Sadly, we will have to take our leave of [Ambassador] David Friedman, who was more of a settler than the settlers, and return to a policy that views the Green Line as the basis for all negotiations and the settlements as a bone in the Palestinians’ throat. The gay days when the settlers danced in Washington will be no more.”