Challenges to Netanyahu May Help Iran Talks

The steady torrent of criticism of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Iran rhetoric by some of the most senior figures in Israel’s security establishment may be causing consternation within the Prime Minister’s office, but it’s not necessarily bad news for the Obama Administration. That’s because the willingness of the Israeli Defense Force’s chief of staff, Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz, as well as the most recently retired heads of the Mossad and Shin Bet security services, to publicly challenge Netanyahu’s assessments of the Iran threat effectively pull the rug out from under the hawkish Iran posture adopted by the Prime Minister and his Defense Minister, Ehud Barak, at the very moment when Israel’s political leaders have been ratcheting up political pressure on the Obama Administration to maintain a hard line when negotiating with Iran. And that’s precisely the sort of the political cover President Obama will need if he’s to achieve a breakthrough in the nuclear negotiations with Iran, whose realistic best-case outcome is likely to fall short of the bottom-line demands long articulated by Netanyahu, and which is likely to be challenged on Capitol Hill as putting Israel at risk.