The Iran Push Backfires.(World Affairs)

Byline: Alon Pinkas; Pinkas is the Director of the U.S.-Israel Center at the Rabin Center in Tel Aviv.

How Netanyahu failed in Washington.

Even by the frenzied standards of Israeli politics, the recent meeting between Benjamin Netanyahu and Barack Obama was unusual. Days after the confrontation between a popular, resoundingly victorious agent of change (Obama) and a neoconservative in his second stint as prime minister (Netanyahu), the Israeli media and chattering classes were still arguing over who had come out ahead.

Given the buildup and the fact that this was a first meeting, all Netanyahu needed to achieve was a degree of personal trust, leaving whatever differences there were for later meetings. "I can definitely work with this guy" is what Netanyahu wanted Obama to tell his staff after the meeting. Based on reports from Washington, it is unclear whether this objective was accomplished. The reason is that by pushing too hard on Iran, Netanyahu may have set himself up for failure.

In an asymmetrical relationship such as the one that exists between the U.S. and Israel, the lesser power needs to play ball and make the adjustments on issues that are not of vital national-security importance. Instead, at Netanyahu's insistence, the meeting was all about "the linkage," which now may prove to be highly contentious down the road. The linkage, of course, is the one between efforts to disrupt Iran's nuclear efforts and to promote the Israeli-Palestinian political process.

Currently, Israel wants the two issues delinked and claims that they each merit a distinct policy formulation. But in the weeks preceding Netanyahu's visit to the White House, Israel presented a linkage of its own. Hamas-controlled Gaza is an Iranian forward outpost, both militarily and ideologically. Now there is an ominous possibility that Hamas will take over the West Bank too, helping to create another Iranian launchpad for further destabilization. Iran has a vested interest in preventing an Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Therefore, until Iran is curtailed and its nuclear program halted, no real progress can be made on the Israeli-Palestinian track.

President Obama reversed the linkage. He and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made it unequivocally clear that an effective Iran policy is contingent on tangible signs of progress in the peace process, specifically a freeze on settlement building. If Israel wants a coherent, collaborative policy designed to prevent Iran from attaining a military nuclear capability, the Americans suggested, a regional coalition must be forged and be supported by Russia and the European Union. Such a coalition, composed of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the Gulf states, needs to see a real commitment from Obama on the peace process. From Obama's ...