The U.S. can’t blindly support Israel and prevent escalation in the region at the same time

BY MITCHELL PLITNICK  

The instability in the Middle East cannot be overstated as the region stands on the precipice. It all stems from Israel’s ongoing slaughter in Gaza and the Biden administration’s blind support of it.

Joe Biden and his administration have put themselves in a difficult position with their blind support for Israel’s genocidal and warmongering aggression in Gaza and Lebanon. Israeli leaders across its government keep making it clear that they intend to ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip. In response, the U.S. has tried to highlight statements along those lines by Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, in an effort to portray such sentiments as fringe and not representative of the full government’s plans.These efforts are regularly undermined by the fact that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and many members of his Likud party—the so-called “mainstream” of Israel—are saying the same things. Fortunately for Biden and his cadre of genocide backers, a credulous U.S. media has kept dutifully silent about those statements while highlighting those of Smotrich and Ben-Gvir. But it’s not just the disconnect between what the U.S. supports rhetorically and what it supports in practice that vexes Biden and his accomplices. One genuine policy point that has driven U.S. engagement in this ongoing genocide is its desire to contain the fighting in an effort to limit the slaughter to the Palestinians on whose lives the administration places no value. They do not want to see the fighting spread to the rest of the region. AdvertisementThe problem is that containing it is not so easy, especially when Israel has some different ideas. Although the Israeli government has been careful not to push too openly for a wider war, they have articulated some goals that go beyond Gaza and have taken some reckless actions that certainly risk escalation. 

The U.S. does itself no favors by allowing Israel to dictate the flow of events with virtually no pushback, aside from the occasional, empty, and mild rebuke. Both Hezbollah and Ansar Allah (commonly referred to as the Houthis) took what were at first relatively minor steps to express solidarity with the Palestinians, doubtless hoping that their actions would incentivize the U.S. to lean on its Israeli client to back away from the full-blown genocidal nature of its attacks. They surely didn’t even hope the U.S. would stop Israel, but it was reasonable to think the threat of escalation might diminish American support and thereby convince the U.S. to press Israel to lessen its assault, eventually leading to a ceasefire, as it has in previous conflicts. But rather than take this obviously sensible step, as previous administrations have done, Biden doubled down on his support. Israel is now escalating even more. Its Christmas Day assassination of Sayyed Razi Mousavi, a top commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Syria was a provocative act that threatened to widen the conflict. Iran has threatened retaliation and will probably take some action in the future, but the Islamic Republic knows how much it has to lose if the war expands to include its confronting Israel and the U.S. They have continued to show restraint. Whether Israel is really trying to draw Iran into a wider conflict is debatable, but Israel has established wartime goals regarding Lebanon and Hezbollah. Israel has made it clear that it wants Hezbollah to redeploy at least eighteen miles away from the southern border, claiming only this will allow the residents of northern Israeli towns that have been evacuated since October 7 to return. 

Hezbollah, naturally, is disinclined to acquiesce to Israel’s demand that it retreat to the 2006 ceasefire line as long as Gaza is under attack. Yet it also faces domestic Lebanese pressures. As much as many Lebanese feel strong solidarity with the Palestinians, the last thing they want to see in their country—already reeling from decades of civil war, corruption, and the more recent economic collapse—is a new round of full-blown warfare with Israel. Israel, for its part, would like to force Hezbollah to pull back from the border without having to commit to greater warfare in the north. With the ethnic cleansing of Gaza proving to be more difficult than Israel at first might have thought, and with international discomfort with Israel’s actions growing, Israel is likely reluctant, at least for the moment, to expand the carnage it is causing in Southern Lebanon to too great a degree. 

Yet at the same time, its devotion to military force as the solution to its problems has led it to take real risks of expanding the fighting.Mousavi’s assassination was one example. Another was the more recent attacks that killed Hamas leader Saleh al-Aruri and, later, Hezbollah commander Hussein Yazbeck. With numerous northern Israeli towns having been evacuated, Israel could, potentially, launch much broader attacks on Hezbollah, although that carries the risk of retaliation in the rest of Israel. 

There is nowhere in Israel that Hezbollah’s missiles—which are vastly superior to those that the Palestinian groups, including Hamas, have—cannot reach. Still, if Israel were really determined to hit Hezbollah and push them away from the border, they could. Instead, they are settling for continuing the gradual escalation in the hope that pressure, mostly from the Lebanese public, does the job for them. Failing that, Israel is likely to continue the gradual escalation until it feels comfortable diverting more of its forces from Gaza to the northern border area.All of this is a delicate balancing act, easily tipped asunder by other actors. 

The attack in Kerman, Iran during a ceremony honoring the assassinated IRGC leader Major General Qassim Suleimani, was a clear example of this. Many leaped to the conclusion that Israel was responsible, although it turned out to be ISIL that claimed responsibility. The motivation for this specific attack is not clear, although ISIL has launched many attacks on Iran over the years. But one result was to increase the air of tension in Iran, as well as the sense of growing chaos in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea areas. Meanwhile, the United States, following the reckless lead of its Israeli partners, assassinated Mushtaq Talib al-Saidia, the deputy commander of operations for Baghdad, of the Iraqi Hash al Sha’bi militia, in a strike in the middle of Baghdad. The attack was apparently revenge for recent attacks on U.S. bases in Iraq. Hash al Sha’bi is part of the quasi-official Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq and opposes the U.S. presence in Iraq. 

The PMF is made up of a wide variety of groups spanning the spectrum of Iraqi identity, but many of its constituent groups are distinctly pro-Iran. The presence of U.S. troops is contentious in Iraq, and actions like this one are certain to exacerbate tensions there and lead to increased attacks on U.S. bases, rather than deter them.The United States has also escalated its actions against Ansar Allah in the Red Sea, sinking three of its boats in the Red Sea that had attacked a commercial container ship, killing ten Ansar Allah fighters. All of these escalations are inevitably going to grow, along with the risk of either a misstep or an intentional act by some actor that leads to the regional war that most of these actors want to avoid. And all of it can be avoided simply by stopping the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, something most of the world, aside from the United States and Israel, wants. 

Then there is the departure from the Eastern Mediterranean of the giant American aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald Ford, this week. The departure of the ship itself is no surprise; it had been in that location longer than usual, and it is normal for ships to be rotated out so that its crew does not spend too much time at sea for any one period. But rather than replace the Ford with another aircraft carrier, the United States decided to replace it with ships that carry only a few helicopters and are meant to carry Marines who are specially trained for evacuations of American and allied personnel. 

The Ford, by contrast, had many aircraft that could provide air support for Israel and a much greater ability to intercept drones and missiles should large-scale attacks from Iran be launched.

This change reflects American confidence, perhaps overconfidence, that the risk of an expanded war has lessened. The decision to change the nature of the U.S. presence, however, was made prior to the recent escalations by Israel. The timing of the Israeli actions would seem to indicate that they are concerned about this American repositioning. Also, the numerous incidents in recent days have caused the Biden administration to reassess the threat of escalation, creating more incoherence in its policy. 

In response to that concern, Biden has dispatched his senior adviser, Amos Hochstein, to the region. Hochstein’s mission is to diminish tensions on the Israeli-Lebanese border. But, while Hochstein will meet with Lebanese leaders, and thereby can send messages to Hezbollah, he can only talk directly to Israel. At those meetings, it seems likely that he will try to reassure Israel that American support is not waning and that the departure of the Ford does not mean the U.S. is any less protective of Israel’s genocidal actions in Gaza. 

The instability that all of these myriad factors come together to produce cannot be overstated. The region is on the precipice of a new conflagration. And it all stems from Israel’s ongoing slaughter in Gaza and the Biden administration’s blind and heartless support of it. It is possible that Israel is finally being forced to admit that the world won’t allow it to empty Gaza of its inhabitants, as Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced a plan on Thursday that would leave Israel in overall control of Gaza but will “permit” some Palestinian civilian control. Gallant’s plan is not an official Israeli position, and its announcement seems aimed at mollifying a Biden administration that is concerned about explicitly supporting ethnic cleansing while not committing to stopping any part of its crimes in Gaza. 

But colonial pretensions and political theater aside, the risk of a regional explosion remains high and continues to grow. It may take time, but if the United States doesn’t depart from its current course of backing Israeli violence with its protection and with violence and lawlessness of its own, that explosion will come eventually, just as it did on October 7.