Green Light

by digby

Yesterday, I described Joe Biden’s comments about Israel’s sovereign right to bomb Iran on Stephanopoulos as “startling” and wondered why everyone seemed so sanguine about what he said. There wasn’t any walk back that I could discern and the people I respect on this issue didn’t seem to be concerned, so I figured I was off base.

Today, Marc Lynch illuminates the situation saying that regardless of what Biden meant, the middle east is taking the statement as a green light to Israel, which is bad:

UPDATE: a senior White House source tells me that this is being misreported, and points me to this from White House spokesman Tommy Vietor:

“The Vice President refused to engage hypotheticals, and he made clear that our policy has not changed. Our friends and allies, including Israel, know that the President believes that now is the time to explore direct diplomatic options, as with the P5+1.”

Good. This needs aggressive pushback though, because the regional media is overwhelmingly reporting the ‘green light’ headline interpretation of Biden’s remark. Time to flex those public diplomacy and strategic communications muscles, folks…

LAST UPDATE (Monday morning): a variety of comments from assorted well-placed worthies have come my way over the last day, some online and others privately. Most suggest that Biden’s comments were not meant to change U.S. policy, and that if anything he meant to distance the U.S. from any Israeli strike (though a few speculate that it was actually meant to strengthen the U.S. bargaining position ahead of the Moscow talks). If that’s the case, then it is only that much more important to repeat that his comments are being nigh-universally presented in the Middle Eastern media (Israeli and Arab, at least) as a “green light.” If that wasn’t the intended signal, then the administration needs to recognize that its signaling has gone awry and clear it up before it’s too late…

Read the whole post if you are interested in this subject. It’s possible that this is what they intended or that Biden himself just misspoke, but it sounds as though this may have been a line they wanted him to give but they misjudged the reaction. (Or maybe not — it’s hard to tell.)

One thing is clear — it’s a very weird thing to have a Vice President who is obviously very close to the president and with a wide ranging portfolio, be someone who has such a history of misspeaking that when he makes foreign policy pronouncements nobody knows if he’s carrying an official line. As I wrote yesterday, it’s possible that they’ve decided to use that to their advantage. It’s also possible that he’s just being Joe.

.