Iran bombs Israel, but buck stops with Biden
If Israel's response sucks us into war, it will be on
the administration's hands. Here's why.
Oct 01, 2024
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/iran-irsael/
Iran launched a massive missile attack against Israel,
which Tehran billed as a response to Israel’s recent assassinations of leaders
of the IRGC, Hezbollah and Hamas. Israel now appears to be mulling a
retaliation in turn that could push the sides into all-out war.
When Israel and Iran narrowly avoided a full-blown
conflict in April, I warned that we shouldn’t let Biden’s help in averting
escalation overshadow his broader, strategic failure to prevent such a
dangerous moment from ever arising. Had the U.S. used its considerable leverage
with Israel to end its war in Gaza, the region would not have found itself on
the edge of a disastrous war in April; six months later, the Middle East is
back at the brink of disaster.
Iran has made it clear that it does not want a
regional conflict; Tehran doesn’t seem to believe it can afford such a war. But
Netanyahu clearly thinks it’s in his interest to ramp up conflict right now, as
Washington stands frozen — a month out from an election and with a lame duck
president who seems incapable of telling Israel “no,” no matter the costs for
American security.
One must hope that somehow, further escalation is
avoided. But the risk of just such an outcome is enormous, and if the U.S.
finds itself in a new forever war in the Middle East, the buck will stop with
Biden. This White House has repeatedly chosen to keep the U.S. on the precipice
of war, rather than restrain Israel’s military as its expanding wars killed
more and more civilians in Gaza and now Lebanon. The Biden administration has
helped bring about this extraordinarily dangerous moment by providing Israel
with the weapons, political protection, diplomatic support, and money it
requires to pursue the exact escalation that the Biden administration professes
it does not want.
Biden’s strategy has been to put enormous effort into
deterring Iran and its partners from retaliating against Israel, while doing
virtually nothing to discourage Israel from escalating in the first place. This
lopsided approach has in fact been a recipe for escalation, repeatedly proving
to Netanyahu that Washington has no intention of bringing pressure to bear on
Israel, no matter its actions.
If Biden enables further escalation from Israel, this
could very well lead to a direct U.S.-Iran military confrontation that would be
profoundly destabilizing in the region. The consequences for U.S. national
security of such a war are hard to quantify — but it’s easy to imagine
consequences on par with the disastrous military adventurism that George W.
Bush’s administration pursued in the Middle East.
If U.S. service members find themselves in the line of
fire in an expanding Iran-Israel conflict, it will be a direct result of this
administration’s failure to use U.S. leverage to pursue America’s most core
security interest here — avoiding war.
Joe Biden came into office promising to end the era of
forever wars and the quixotic, costly efforts to transform the Middle East.
Now, Biden appears to have fallen into the trap of thinking that U.S. military
force will transform the region for good. It is stunning that Washington
appears not to have learned this lesson yet.
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