In Mideast, Dropping Diplomacy For Bloodshed Is Bad Policy And Stupid Politics
Last Wednesday, President Trump offered a new word to describe our Iranian adversary's leaders: "scum."
"They are sick people. They're led by sick people, and they're vicious, violent people," he said, adding, "As far as I'm concerned, it's just a waste of time dealing with them."
So, what are we supposed to do?
What we did was hit Iran with two of the worst days of bombing since the war started.
And what has that accomplished? Brought us to the brink, or back from the brink, the brink being the place that mediators between us and Iran say we are on. The brink of all-out, endless war, which feels like it has never really stopped.
Instead of facing our own problems and addressing them, President Donald Trump leads us in an unpopular war while gas prices and grocery check-outs go up.
Unpopular wars make for unpopular presidents, which make for bad electoral outcomes.
Sooner or later, Trump is going to have to deal with the men he calls "scum," or some of them. Calling them names will not strengthen his hand. His version of diplomacy looks more like the moves of a weaker hand. Pursuing military strength without at the same time pursuing peace leads to a dead end.
That was, coincidentally perhaps, the message of former Chicago Mayor, Congressman, and Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel, who went to Tel Aviv to bring home his criticism of Benjamin Netanyahu and his government.
"The prime minister and his government have led Israel into a dead end," Emanuel said. Citing the importance of pursuing both military strength and peace talks, he added, "Prime Minister Netanyahu has done the former to the exclusion of the latter, and as a direct result, support for Israel is plummeting around the world."
Emanuel was voicing the opinion of most American Jews when he made clear his criticism of Netanyahu and his endless wars. He criticized Netanyahu for playing partisan politics with the GOP rather than maintaining the bipartisan support for Israel of the past.
Netanyahu did not, of course, respond. Some of his allies reportedly claimed that Rahm was not important enough to respond to; on that, they are clearly wrong. Rahm should never be underestimated, and the movement he speaks for is only growing. Others tried to paint him into a corner: as one adviser to Netanyahu posted, "There will be a place for Rahm Emanuel in between Karl Marx and Bernie Sanders when the next edition of The Vanishing Jew is published."
But Rahm Emanuel is far from a self-hating Jew. His father was born in Jerusalem. He has strong ties to Israel. His opposition to Netanyahu is shared by a majority of American Jews, who also express concern about Israel's conduct of the war in Gaza and its engaging in war crimes; a significant minority thinks Israel engaged in genocide. Younger American Jews (ages 18 to 34) are less attached emotionally to Israel and more likely to be critical.
We need a negotiated solution with Iran. Israel needs a negotiated resolution with its neighbors. Name-calling has never been a preferred tactic of experienced negotiators, and Trump is hardly proof of a new lesson in that regard. Accuse Rahm Emanuel of many things, but no one has ever said that he's not a smart politician. What he's saying right now is smart, and it's smart politics. What Trump's saying is not.
Susan Estrich is a celebrated feminist legal scholar, the first female president of the Harvard Law Review, and the first woman to run a U.S. presidential campaign. She has written eight books.
