On the
face of it, it makes no sense. Senator Chuck Schumer’s decision to vote against
the Iran nuclear deal is a blow to the administration’s effort to smear all opponents
of the plan as partisan Republicans who care only about venting spleen at
President Obama. While it did shake up what theNew York Times described as the “firewall” the White House is trying to build a
veto-proof majority in the Senate to disapprove the deal, it by no means
altered the math that indicates that such a margin seems likely to be out of reach for its
opponents. But that didn’t satisfy President Obama and his
left-wing supporters. Instead of merely quietly chuckling at
Schumer’s apparent decision not to rally opposition to the pact in the
Democratic caucus and realizing that his silence this week is a sign they had
already won, the left has launched a vicious campaign against the senator. But
the reason for what might normally be seen as an overreaction isn’t hard to
figure out. The point of the effort to label Schumer a turncoat and begin an
effort to stop him from becoming the Democrat’s next leader in the Senate isn’t
so much about winning a battle Obama probably already has in his pocket as it
is the first shot fired in Obama’s post-deal ratification struggle to undermine
the U.S.-Israel alliance.
As far
back as April, I speculated that if Schumer did vote no, it wouldn’t be meaningful if he did
not use his formidable fundraising and lobbying skills to drag other Democrats
along with him and actually kill the agreement. As Seth Lipsky noted in Haaretzyesterday, Schumer virtually disappeared as soon
as his announcement was made. For a publicity hound like Schumer, that’s pretty
unusual. But it should also be noted that by releasing the news during last
week’s Republican presidential debate, he appeared to be timing it to provide
the least possible embarrassment for the administration. That might have worked
except for the puzzling decision of the White House to leak the news that
Schumer had politely alerted them to ahead of time.
What
followed then was an avalanche of anger at Schumer from left-wing sources.
Though Democrats had already agreed on Schumer to be Harry Reid’s successor
once the current Minority Leader announced his retirement at the end of this
term, out of nowhere a movement dedicating to stopping him. White House
spokesman Josh Earnest even seemed to give that effort tacit approval when he
said that it was understandable if Democrats were considering whether Schumer
was fit to be their next leader, giving even more credence to the growing
belief that Dick Durbin will challenge Schumer. Worse followed as the rhetoric
from left-wing sources heated up and, as the New York Post editorial page noted yesterday, spilled over into anti-Semitism and
accusations of “treason,” as this vile cartoon in the Daily Kos
indicated.
Given that
the fate of the deal does not seem to be in question, that seems a bit
excessive even for the hyper partisan Obama political operation in the White
House. After all, Schumer is as reliable a Democratic partisan as any member of
the Senate. He’s earned the nod as Reid’s successor in waiting by spending the
last 17 years working tireless for his party and its Senate candidates and
backing every bad liberal idea Obama proposed in the last six and a half years
until the Iran deal came up. Moreover, given the fact that Obama is going to
need Schumer as he continues to try to govern in the last year and a half of
his presidency, what is the point of burning bridges with him when his actions
won’t alter the fate of the deal?
One simple
answer might be that it is merely a function of the president’s vindictive
nature. It’s no secret that this is a leader who runs a top-down administration
that does not encourage vibrant debate within its ranks. Obama is notoriously
thin-skinned and seems to take criticism or opposition even more personally
than most of its predecessors.
But that
only goes so far in explaining why Obama is not respecting Schumer’s need to stay
within the pro-Israel fold. After spending years covering for the president’s
efforts to pick fights with the Jewish state by claiming that he will always be
the guardian (shomer in Hebrew) of the U.S.-Israel alliance, you’d think
Schumer was entitled to be cut some slack on Iran.
But that
is not what is happening. The White House isn’t content to merely whip
Democrats on the issue in an effort to obtain the one-third-plus-one votes they
need to sustain a veto of a resolution of disapproval for the Iran deal.
Instead, they are sending a rather pointed message to the pro-Israel community
that no one, not even a good Democratic soldier and future leader like Schumer,
can get away with crossing the president when it comes to his plans for détente
with Iran.
Rather
than merely another Obama tantrum at the chutzpah of critics, the singling out
of Schumer seems to be the beginning of an effort to rid the Democratic
leadership of a staunch pro-Israel figure. If we assume, as perhaps we should
that the Iran deal will not be stopped, the White House may have already
skipped ahead to fighting future battles with Israel over what will happen once
the pact is put into effect. Obama has already done his best to isolate Israel
and its government and to brand opponents of Iran détente as either mindless
GOP partisans or guilty of dual loyalty to Israel. The logical next step is to
ensure that no one like Schumer becomes Democratic leader, or at least to
inflict the sort of beating on him that will ensure that no many members of his
party ever challenge his effort to create daylight with Israel again. The
attacks on Democratic opponents of the deal illustrate the depths to which the
administration is prepared to sink to win this fight. But it also reflects its
desire to downgrade the alliance with the Jewish state and start chipping away
at the heretofore solid and bipartisan pro-Israel consensus.
Polls already show that rank and file
Democrats are far less likely to support Israel than Republicans. The assault on
Schumer shows that by the time Obama is done, that gap will be far greater.
