Israel at wits’ end with Obama’s refusal to put down red lines on Iran’s nuclear program

Apparently Netanyahu and the American ambassador to Israel got into a heated argument at a meeting in late August over the Obama administration’s weak position on stopping Iran’s nuclear program. According to the article, Netanyahu is at his wits’ end over Obama’s refusal to communicate a strong and convincing message to Iran.

Read below:

THE ATLANTIC – Rep. Mike Rogers, the Michigan Republican who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, says that his much-discussed meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem late last month did, in fact, devolve into an sharp confrontation between Netanyahu and the American ambassador to Israel, the former National Security Council official (and former Obama campaign Jewish liaison), Dan Shapiro.

Rogers told a Michigan radio interviewer earlier this week that he had not previously witnessed such a high-level confrontation, and he described Israeli leaders as being at “wits’ end” over what they see as President Obama’s unwillingness to provide them with his “red lines” in the effort to stop Iran’s nuclear program. He also said that neither the Israelis nor the Iranians believe that Obama would use force to stop the nuclear program. (UPDATE: Rogers said as well he believes the Israelis will “probably” bomb Iran if they don’t get clearer red lines from the U.S.)

Rogers description of the meeting directly contradicts repeated Administration assertions that there is “no daylight” on the Iran issue with the Israeli government. Shortly after the meeting took place, Israeli press reports appeared suggesting that Netanyahu and Shapiro had engaged in an argument, but Shapiro soon dismissed those reports, calling them “silly” and saying, “The published account of that meeting did not reflect what actually occurred in the meeting. The conversations were entirely friendly and professional.”

Rogers, speaking to WJR radio host Frank Beckmann, painted a very different picture. He said the meeting, originally scheduled to be a discussion of intelligence and technical issues between himself and the prime minister, spun out of control when Netanyahu began lambasting Shapiro over the Administration’s Iran policy. When Beckmann asked Rogers to describe the tenor of the meeting, he said: “Very tense. Some very sharp… exchanges and it was very, very clear the Israelis had lost their patience with the (Obama) Administration.” He went on, “There was no doubt. You could not walk out of that meeting and think that they had not lost their patience with this Administration.”

Rogers said Israeli frustration grows from what they see — and he sees — as a refusal by the Obama Administration to outline an endgame: “(I)t was very clear the overarching policy has been frustrating mainly because I think it’s not very clear. What we walked out of that meeting knowing is that the Administration was trying to defend itself.” By the end, he said, there was a “sharp exchange between the Administration’s representative there, our ambassador there, and Mr. Netanyahu, which was unusual to say the least, but I thought at the end of the day maybe productive.”

And there’s much more at the Atlantic, including what Rogers thinks based on the meeting as to when Israel will strike Iran.


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