As the dust settles from Israel’s recent military strikes on Iran, analysts and former diplomats say one thing is clear: Israel, for better or worse, is dictating events in the Middle East. The United States has been relegated to the role of wingman as its ally wages war on multiple fronts.

The New York Times sees this as a radical shift. Whether on the battlefields of Iraq or at the presidential retreat at Camp David, the United States has long viewed itself as the pivotal player in the Middle East, working boldly, if not always successfully, to change the course of the region’s difficult history.

“Now, as Israel launches attacks against its enemies — including Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza and their backer Iran — President Biden finds his leverage severely limited. Instead of making peace or waging the major wars of his predecessors, he is mostly engaged in diplomatic clean-up operations,” the paper said.

Some American efforts have shown signs of influence: Israel heeded American warnings not to strike sensitive nuclear enrichment sites or oil production facilities in Iran in response to Iran’s ballistic missile attacks on Israel earlier this month. But more ambitious efforts, such as U.S.-led negotiations for a cease-fire with Hamas in Gaza, have failed to achieve a breakthrough. The United States has yet to propose, let alone implement, a comprehensive plan that would pull the Middle East back from a catastrophic regional war. Nor does it appear to have much influence over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has escalated the conflict with Hezbollah and Iran and continued the military campaign in Gaza despite the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. Photo

Junior partner takes charge

Experts say Netanyahu’s goal is to use the momentum of Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attacks to defeat Israel’s enemies across the board. Israel’s defenders call it a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reshape the region’s dangerous landscape, while critics say Israel is escalating the conflict without any plan for what comes next.

“You have a disconnect where the junior partner in the alliance has a broader vision of the region, and the senior partner is left trying to respond to events,” Vali Nasser, a State Department official in the Obama administration who is now a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, told the paper. “That’s not a good place for the United States.”

Competitors like China and Russia are noticing the United States’ inability to rein in Israel or contain conflict in the Middle East, Nasr said. That could deepen President Vladimir Putin’s resolve to crush Ukraine or embolden Chinese President Xi Jinping to move against Taiwan.

What’s more, the broader conflict in the region would almost inevitably draw in the United States. It has already deployed warships to the Mediterranean to deter Hezbollah and Iran, deployed special forces to Israel to help hunt down hostages and Hamas leaders, and helped Israel shoot down Iranian missiles.

“The core assumption of the Israelis is that in a wider war, the United States will do the fighting,” Nasr said. “The United States is sleepwalking into another long-term conflict in the Middle East.”

The conflict in the Middle East is playing out during a period of acute political uncertainty in the United States. Israel’s retaliatory strike against Iran came just ten days before a presidential election that appears to be tied between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.

Harris has shown little difference with President Biden on the Gaza war, though she has acknowledged that the White House's policy of unwavering support for Israel has caused her problems on the campaign trail.

Trump has had his own problems with Netanyahu, dating back to 2020, when the Israeli leader angered Trump by congratulating Biden on his election victory. But in recent comments, and in a phone call with Netanyahu, Trump has offered strong support for Israel’s brutal war on Gaza, Lebanon and Hezbollah.

“Biden is trying to stop him,” Trump told reporters last week, when asked about Mr Netanyahu. “He’s trying to stop him, and maybe he should have done the opposite, actually.”

They also said that if Trump is elected, they expect an effort to expand the Abraham Accords, under which several Gulf states normalized relations with Israel during the Trump administration. But without an end to the war in Gaza and some hint of a path to a two-state solution for the Palestinians, Saudi Arabia is unlikely to move toward Israel.

Under a president like Harris, the United States is likely to seek an “integrated approach,” addressing the Israeli-Palestinian problem as well as Israel’s relations with its Arab and Muslim neighbors, these analysts said. But Biden’s failure to make much progress is a grim omen.

The newspaper quotes Michael Oren, the former Israeli ambassador to the United States, as saying that there are many commonalities between Netanyahu's vision and Biden's vision, despite their disagreement over the need for a Palestinian state.

But Oren said that even in the wake of the October 7 attacks, “the White House believes their vision can be achieved without overwhelming military force, while Netanyahu knows it cannot.”

Some diplomats say the United States has historically been able to use turmoil in the Middle East to push for change. The 1973 Yom Kippur War planted the seeds for the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt. The first Palestinian intifada paved the way for peace talks during the Clinton administration.

“There is certainly a moment of hope here,” said Daniel Kurtzer, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel and Egypt. “If you are Israeli and you have seriously weakened three of your most important enemies, you might say to yourself: This is an opportunity to move toward regional stability and peace.”

However, Kurtzer said what separates the current conflict from previous ones is “the brutal nature of Hamas’s assault on Israel, which has left its population traumatized in a way that previous wars have not, and the uncertain leadership in several key countries, not just the United States.”

Iran’s response to the confrontation with Israel, for example, has been patchy. This reflects questions about leadership succession, economic problems, internal unrest, and the damage Israel has done to its proxies. As for Israel, Mr. Netanyahu still faces the possibility of corruption prosecution and governs in a coalition with far-right ministers, some of whom see the conflict in Gaza as a pretext for expelling the Palestinian population.

As for Israel, Netanyahu still faces the possibility of prosecution on corruption charges, and he governs in a coalition with far-right ministers, some of whom view the conflict in Gaza as a pretext for expelling the Palestinian population.

“There is a vision there, but it will not work,” said Kurtzer, who teaches at Princeton University. “It will only perpetuate the conflict.”