BIBI VS. BARACK: THE WORLD'S MESSIEST MARRIAGE

[Stellar]

SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE

Benjamin Netanyahu was waiting in a small, drab office in the administrative area of Ronald Reagan National Airport. It was March 2007, and he was about to fly back to Israel from Washington. But before he left, he wanted to feel out a promising, young senator who was planning to run for president. When Barack Obama received the request for a meeting, he wasn't sure how to respond. "Why should I meet this guy?" one of his aides remembers Obama asking.

Netanyahu was the leader of the Israeli opposition back then, not the prime minister, and in the elections that were held a year earlier, he had led the Likud Party to its worst result in decades. It would have been easy enough for Obama to politely decline the invitation. But his policy advisers convinced him to accept. "When you're president," one of them explained, "there's a good chance you'll eventually have to work with him."

As soon as Obama entered the room, a Netanyahu aide felt he was in the presence of someone special. "His movements were sharp, his pace like that of a panther," the aide later recalled. Obama's staff wanted to focus the 30-minute meeting on Iran. They sensed that—unlike the Palestinian issue—this was something Netanyahu and Obama could actually agree on. Netanyahu did most of the talking, explaining that Iran's nuclear program was the world’s greatest danger to peace. Obama didn't disagree. He let Netanyahu know how seriously he took Israel’s security and mentioned the sanctions legislation against Iran that he was helping to push through the Senate.

Netanyahu was impressed. "I think this guy is going to beat Hillary,” he told his advisers that day. “It was a very good meeting,” his team reported to the Israeli embassy.

With his closest aides, however, Netanyahu did raise one concern. He noticed that Obama's reasons for opposing Iran's nuclear ambitions had more to do with the danger of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East than with Iran's support for terrorism or the unpredictability of the ayatollahs. Over his long career, Netanyahu had developed a sensitive ear for the words of American politicians. Obama, he thought, sounded more like a political science professor than a senator. It wasn't necessarily bad—just different.

Their next meeting came in July 2008. Obama was now the Democratic nominee for president, and he arrived in Israel as part of a ten-day world tour. His 36 hours in the country would be crucial. Opponents were already portraying him as a threat based on his middle name, Muslim father and connections to people who were thought to be pro-Palestinian. Obama wanted to use the visit to affirm his support for the Jewish state.

Much More: HuffPo