Conflict in Washington - Undermining authority

Henry Kissinger once complained that when he wanted to talk to Europe, he never knew who to phone.

By deriding disunity, Kissinger pointed to a weakness, one that EU solidarity has done much to overcome in intervening decades.

Europeans who want to talk to America today face the same dilemma — do they phone the White House or do they phone Republican House speaker John Boehner, who has provoked a controversy by inviting Israel’s Binyamin Netanyahu to address the House of Congress in March, despite the explicit disapproval of the White House.

US president Barack Obama has warned that the invitation may jeopardise an agreement with Iran on that country’s nuclear programme and allow American institutions be exploited during an Israeli election campaign. Israel goes to the polls on St Patrick’s Day.

Usually, a visit by a world leader to the US would be managed by the White House but Boehner, in cahoots with Ron Dermer, Israel’s ambassador to America, has facilitated Netanyahu by helping him challenge Obama’s policies in the president’s backyard.

As one of Obama’s predecessors, Abraham Lincoln, warned almost 160 years ago, “a house divided against itself cannot stand”. The world, like it or not, cannot afford a weakened America. Netanyahu and his accomplice are, by their indifference and ambition, undermining the very force and authority they depend on.