In recent weeks, dozens of countries and leaders have called on Israel, directly, indirectly and through the United Nations, to temporarily cease its attacks on Gaza. Pleas were ignored or rejected; UN talks have been mired in technical and semantic details.
In a surprise announcement Thursday, the White House said Israel would allow “limited pauses” in its military operations “for humanitarian reasons.” Nothing has happened so far, but a promise is a promise.
At the same time, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Gaza should not be reoccupied by Israel and that Palestinians who fled Gaza City should be allowed to return.
All this, even as the United States has increased its military presence in the region, with two aircraft carrier battle groups deployed in the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, and additional air and ground forces reinforcing friendly bases throughout the region. Some of the 3,400 US troops in Iraq and Syria have nevertheless been the target of isolated and imprecise missile and drone attacks, apparently by various sub-state armed groups. The United States also rushed massive air and sea deliveries of arms and munitions to Israel.
So what is really happening?
Israel is America’s traditional, strongest and most secure strategic partner in the Middle East, and it is unlikely that, whatever the differences between their administrations, this position will ever change. But the United States also needs its Arab strategic partners.
In deciding its policies and strategies in the Middle East, Washington must take into account many factors. They include, among others, regional and global security, its relations with Iran, the security and cost of oil and gas supplies, the freedom and security of international shipping lanes and the containment of the influence of Russia and China. It’s a complicated mix, even at the best of times.
When policies are formulated and implemented by amateurs guided by the bias of private inclinations, it often wastes years of hard work. This was the case during the disastrous four years of the Trump administration’s off-kilter approach to the Middle East. The president’s main “expert” was his son-in-law, then 37 years old. His proposed “peace plan” was fodder for Israeli hawks, but it stunned and angered Palestinians.
Stepping back from current issues related to Gaza, it is clear that most of America’s problems in the Middle East stem from two fundamental reasons: the end of the bipolar world and Washington’s relationship with Iran.
For 50 years after World War II, the division between Western Communism dominated by the United States and Eastern Communism led by the Soviet Union guided political allegiances.
In the Middle East, Israel was in the American camp, as were Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the Gulf states; Syria, Egypt, Iraq and Libya were on the Soviet side. Convincing Egypt to switch allegiance from East to West and sign the peace agreement with Israel in 1978 was one of Washington’s major strategic victories in the Middle East during the Cold War.
Under the Shah’s rule, Iran probably had the most pro-American regime from the Mediterranean to the Pacific, but this equation was reversed after the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Overnight, the United States became the Iran’s biggest enemy.
In the best tradition of a pragmatic foreign policy, the United States encouraged and assisted Saddam Hussein’s Iraq to invade its larger neighbor, Iran. The nearly 10-year war was virtually, if not directly, a US proxy war against Iran. The United States waged another proxy war through the mujahideen against Soviet-controlled Afghanistan.
While the Cold War was often harsh and unfair to the interests of the smaller countries involved, the bipolar strategic paradigm had its advantages: the two great patrons were careful not to allow local unrest to explode into major wars, usually with success.
When communism collapsed, the West allowed itself to proclaim “the end of history”, believing that it had won its great strategic struggle once and for all and that future confrontations would be small-scale and easily controllable. What a mistake.
In less than a decade, the United States has let its regional surveillance and insight into potential hot spots disappear.
With its analytical capabilities severely weakened, the United States allowed itself to be drawn, through ignorance, arrogance, and overconfidence, into three successive wars that ended in embarrassing setbacks for Washington.
After years of being bogged down in Iraq, the United States withdrew hastily when it realized that continuing there was costing too much in human lives, in money and above all in reputation in the Middle East and in Islamic countries. It similarly withdrew from Afghanistan a decade later.
Washington repeated the mistake it made in Iraq by getting involved in the war in Syria, although this time it did not openly invade the country. Its support for anti-government factions ultimately helped, of all factions, pro-Iranian armed groups gain influence and strength. Syria has also strengthened its ties with Moscow. Bottom line: Iran has expanded its regional influence and the United States has failed to control it.
Other regional conflicts have also shown the limits of US power and influence – whether in its inability to end the war between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis in Yemen or to exit the impasse in Libya.
It is understandable then that in the year leading up to the 2024 elections, Biden wants to appear active in the region with a more balanced approach, aiming to demonstrate that the United States still has the capacity to mediate peace .
If that means mentioning some things that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his hard-line cabinet don’t want to hear – let alone consider – so be it.