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Since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7 last year, America has pursued two key objectives. The first is to provide “ironclad” support to Israel. The second is to prevent a larger regional war that could spill over into the United States.
But there is a latent tension between these two objectives. And this tension is now near the breaking point.
The problem is that ironclad support can be interpreted as a blank check given to Israel to take whatever military action it deems appropriate – with the certainty that, when the chips are down, America will. will support. This potentially gives Israel license to take risks that trigger the regional war the United States is trying to prevent.
Israel failed to warn America before launching its deadly attack on the Iranian embassy complex in Damascus. Iran duly responded, with an unprecedented barrage of missiles and drones aimed at the Jewish state.
Now the Biden administration is urgently trying to prevent Israel from further escalation. As one US official put it: “The problem is that both sides want to deliver the last blow. »
President Joe Biden’s insistence that the United States would not participate in any counterattack against Iran helped persuade the Israeli government not to react immediately. But Israel vowed it would retaliate in due time. The Israelis point out that if Iran had fired hundreds of missiles at America, the United States would certainly respond. But Israel is counting on American military support and an implicit security guarantee from Washington. As one American official told me earlier in this crisis: “The Israelis are gambling with their house money.”
In recent weeks, Biden has become much more open in his criticism of Israeli actions in Gaza, without specifying how America might condition its support or whether it might restrict arms deliveries to Israel. The question of how to deal with Iran adds another level of disagreement between Washington and Jerusalem.
For many years, Israeli officials have insisted that Iran and its nuclear program pose an existential threat to the Jewish state. There has been intermittent talk that Israel or the United States would bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities. Iran is now closer than ever to acquiring nuclear weapons, and Israel’s perception of threat has been significantly heightened by the Hamas attack. The new Israeli orthodoxy is that the country must take preventative measures to eliminate threats.
In Israel, the Iranian regime is widely portrayed as a fanatical religious sect that would happily risk Armageddon. But the United States sees Iran more as a surviving regime, brutal but rational. The Biden administration acknowledges that Iran has indeed crossed a major threshold with its missile barrage. But he believes that Tehran is now signaling that it wants de-escalation.
The fear in Washington is that Israel could still act on its own threat perception and launch a significant attack on Iran – believing that, ultimately, America will join the war and might even defeat the Iranian regime in the name of Israel. But such a calculation would also carry many risks for Israel. Launching a broader war with Iran could effectively draw the United States into the fight. But it could also test America’s commitment to Israel to the breaking point.
Behind the tense debates in Washington over what “ironclad” commitments entail lies another, often unspoken, question. Is Israel still a strategic asset for the United States, or is it becoming a strategic liability?
On the liability side, the biggest concern is clearly that Israeli actions will drag America into a new war in the Middle East. U.S. support for Israel in Gaza has also tarnished America’s image in much of the world, complicating its efforts to rally support against Russia and China.
Biden is also paying a domestic political price, as he loses the support of young voters. Since his team sincerely believes that American democracy itself is at stake in the upcoming election, this is not a trivial or ignoble consideration. The fact that Benjamin Netanyahu is close to Donald Trump – and that he is accused of undermining Israel’s own democracy – reinforces the White House’s reservations towards the Israeli government.
And yet, on the other side of the picture, Israel remains an old ally of the United States and the most open society in the Middle East. There is also close cooperation between Israeli and Western intelligence services, based on a shared concern over Islamist terrorism.
And even if the Biden administration does not share Israel’s apocalyptic vision towards Iran, it considers this country to be very dangerous. In Washington, Iran is presented as one of four members of an “axis of adversaries” that includes Russia, China and North Korea. This axis would gain strength and confidence if Iran could claim to have gained the upper hand over Israel.
The fact that Jordan allegedly helped block the Iranian missile barrage indicates that – even in the Middle East – there are countries that share the American determination to thwart Iranian attacks on Israel.
Perhaps there is a master game theorist in the White House who can balance all of these competing imperatives. Otherwise, the United States will need luck, as well as judgment, to emerge from this crisis without being drawn into another war.