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White House to UN: First Iran, Then Mideast Peace
(Foreign Policy) Colum Lynch - The U.S. has been privately leaning on France and other allies to hold off on pushing a measure at the UN Security Council designed to force movement on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process until negotiations over Iran's nuclear program have concluded, diplomats said. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has appealed to his French counterpart to put the decision off until at least after the deadline for Iran talks at the end of June, or possibly even later, after the administration has secured congressional support for the deal, according to diplomatic sources. "It seems pretty clear to me there is no interest in the United States in pushing this right now," said Ilan Goldenberg, a former member of the Obama administration's Middle East team. He noted that the White House has to balance its interest in mounting a new Middle East peace push at the UN with locking down support for the Iran deal in Congress. "The administration is not going to do anything to jeopardize that," he said. Israel, which thinks the UN is hopelessly biased, has fiercely opposed more directly involving it in peace talks.