Portside

Twenty-two years ago, as the winds of war were gathering in Washington, there was a strong sense of not just rage but of over-confidence in the United States. The neoconservative movement was at the height of its influence, both in and outside of government. The world had rallied around the United States and its invasion of Afghanistan, in the wake of the September 11 attacks, and they had not yet realized that the invasion force was already sinking into what would become a twenty-year quagmire.

The neocons argued that it was time to remake the Middle East according to the West’s vision. Ignoring the fact that the region’s problems stemmed in large measure from post-colonial conditions that traced their roots back to the Allied Powers’ decision to draw the region’s borders according to their colonial ambitions in the aftermath of World War I, they seized the opportunity to put their theories to the test. 

Iraq was the focal point of that test, but it was the entire region that was the laboratory for these mad scientists’ experiments. The repercussions of the disaster they brought to the region are felt to this day.

The mood today in Washington is similar. This time, an attack on Israel is the excuse and the catalyst that has sparked a renewed ambition to reshape the Middle East, this time according to a joint vision shared by the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu and the administration of Joe Biden in the United States. 

Whether it’s State Department mouthpiece Matthew Miller bragging that the United States was never interested in a diplomatic resolution of the assault on the Gaza Strip or both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris calling the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah “a measure of justice” while ignoring the hundreds of civilians Israel had killed in Beirut in the attack, triumphalism and hubris are the order of the day in Washington. 

That triumphalism is matched and surpassed in Israel. Netanyahu’s assassination of much of Hezbollah’s top leadership, including Nasrallah, has helped to shift attention away from Gaza, where Israel has destroyed much of Strip, killed tens of thousands of innocents, but, for all that blood, has yet to defeat Hamas.

Radical settler and former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett called on Israel to destroy Iran’s nuclear reactors. Another former PM, the supposedly more rational Ehud Barak cautioned Israel not to try to go to war with Iran until it secured the help it needs from the United States. The idea of de-escalation is invisible in this discourse.

The mood in Israel and Washington betrays the reality behind Israel’s genocidal program in Gaza. From October 7 to this moment, the Netanyahu government’s sights were set not on Gaza or even the West Bank, but on Iran. The utter lack of value that Israel, the United States, and their European allies place on Palestinian lives meant that these innumerable people in Gaza who have died directly from Israeli attacks and indirectly from disease, exposure, lack of clean water, malnutrition, starvation and all the other effects of war, have all been sacrificed as an opening salvo in the latest attempt to “remake the Middle East.”

Unfortunately, first Hezbollah and then Iran could only avoid the confrontation for so long. Hezbollah could not turn their backs on Hamas, although both they and Iran were apparently caught unaware when Hamas launched its attack on October 7. Iran’s strategy of patience and playing the long game may be the wiser course, but neither they nor Hezbollah could afford to be perceived as inactive in the face of the wholesale slaughter Israel was unleashing on Gaza.

The real shift that Iran might have underestimated in its calculations a year ago is the one in Washington. Joe Biden went farther than any of his predecessors in refusing to restrain Israel to even the slightest degree. In the past, American presidents had always worked to keep Israel from embroiling the Mideast in a regional war that would drag the U.S. and other countries in.

Donald Trump was something of an exception in his indulgence of Israel and recklessness in dealing with Iran (the assassination of Qasim Suleimani and the abrogation of the JCPOA being the most obvious examples) but he was too mercurial and unpredictable for Israel to be sure he would act as they wanted him to if they provoked a war with Iran.

Biden moved the needle. He made it absolutely clear from the outset that he was backing Israel to the hilt. Every time Netanyahu tested the limits of Biden’s tolerance, he found it limitless. Every time Netanyahu crossed a so-called “red line” of Biden’s, he not only faced no consequences, he was rewarded with more money and weapons. Even while Netanyahu has worked to support Donald Trump in this election, Biden has remained steadfast in his complete devotion to Israel’s program.

The danger of combining that kind of deference to Israel with the Israeli far-right’s determination to wage a wide scale war with no concern about the regional consequences cannot be overstated. This is a moment that dwarfs the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 for the potential upheaval it can cause in the region. 

While there have been regular reports of dissension throughout the Executive Branch, many of Biden’s key advisers are fully on board with raising the stakes against Iran. The reactions we are seeing right now to the latest escalation demonstrate this.

Eager for war

After Israel assassinated Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, Iran promised retaliation that never came. The most likely explanation is that Iran was biding its time, knowing it was not in a position of military strength and hoping that domestic American pressures might be heightened by the new Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian’s demonstrated openness to reestablishing détente with the West.

Unfortunately, Pezeshkian’s pragmatism—which, given anti-Iranian hostility in the United States was always going to be greeted with skepticism—is largely unknown to Americans, as it has been ignored by most of our media. 

Instead, we get spectacles like the one we had during the vice presidential debate on Tuesday, where the very first question posed to the candidates was not how to defuse regional tensions but whether they would back an Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear facilities. 

The salivating over the prospect of war is not at all confined to the media. A report in Politico stated that Biden’s top advisers Brett McGurk and Amos Hochstein were pushing hard for a major attack on Lebanon and, by extension, Iran. 

According to Politico, “Behind the scenes, Hochstein, McGurk and other top U.S. national security officials are describing Israel’s Lebanon operations as a history-defining moment — one that will reshape the Middle East for the better for years to come. The thinking goes: Israel has obliterated Hezbollah’s top command structure in Lebanon, severely undercutting the group’s capabilities and weakened Iran, which used Hezbollah as a proxy and power projector.”

The report suggests that this view has triumphed in the White House, and that expanding an operation against Hezbollah “could offer an opportunity to reduce Iran’s influence in Lebanon and the region.”

The reality of Iran’s missile strike

Iranian ballistic missiles head toward Israeli military and security targets on October 1, 2023. (Photo: Fars News Agency)

We need to be clear about where each side stands on this. While the Biden administration has insisted for the past year that they want to avoid a regional war, their actions have pushed the region toward one. 

To be sure, this was a risk Hezbollah took as well when they opened a northern front with Israel to help Hamas withstand the Israeli onslaught by trying to divide Israel’s forces. Yet, when push came to shove, Hezbollah recognized the threat Israel posed and was willing to compromise. Lebanon’s acting foreign minister, Abdallah Bou Habib told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour that Hezbollah had agreed to the U.S.’ and France’s proposal for a 21-day ceasefire shortly before Israel killed him. 

Habib is no Hezbollah mouthpiece. He is a long-time World Bank economist and former Lebanese Ambassador to the United States. He made it clear that the Americans and Israelis knew that Hezbollah had agreed to the ceasefire.

Iran as well has been trying to avoid an escalation. But the Islamic Republic was facing criticism over its “strategic patience,” and was in danger of seeming impotent in the face of Israeli aggression while Hezbollah, Ansarallah, Hamas and other, smaller groups were taking action. 

After Nasrallah’s assassination, Iran had to respond. Yet even when it did, it targeted Israeli military sites, and, as it did in April, it warned the United States beforehand. This time around, Iran used high-quality missiles and gave the U.S. much less lead time to prepare themselves and the Israelis to defend against the missiles. There has been considerable secrecy under Israel’s system of military censorship about the extent of the damage Iran might have done with this latest barrage.

Iran had clearly stepped up its response, recognizing that both its inaction after Haniyeh’s killing and its very restrained missile attack back in April had encouraged, rather than deterred, Israeli and American adventurism. Yet they still made sure to minimize the response, hoping to avoid further escalation by the U.S. and Israel. 

Biden said on Wednesday that the United States did not support a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. This isn’t as much of a concession as it might sound. 

Iran’s nuclear program is not concentrated in a single site as Syria’s was in 2007 or Iraq’s in 1981, when Israel bombed those sites. Iran’s facilities are scattered throughout the country, some of them deep underground. A strike at any of them is not going to cripple the program as a whole, but it certainly would entice Iran to speed up their nuclear development as much as they can.

The more pertinent question is whether Israel will refrain from targeting the kind of civilian areas as they have in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen. Extensive civilian harm would force a much stronger Iranian response. 

Or Israel might strike Iranian oil fields in hopes of inflicting major damage to an Iranian economy that is already weak. If Israel does pursue that course, it raises the distinct possibility that Iran might strike at oil fields in Arab countries that are key to the American, Israeli, and European energy supply. Either of these scenarios significantly raises the likelihood of a major regional war.

The other possibility is that Israel would settle for a token response, one that, like Iran’s this week, demonstrates its capabilities but does relatively little damage. This would be the most rational course, but the question is, with a license to shoot given to it by the Biden administration again, would Israel pursue a rational course? 

Given the eagerness with which the Biden administration seems to be pressing forward with another doomed attempt to “remake the Middle East,” rationality seems like a pipe dream. Every time this has been tried, whether with the Sykes-Picot Agreement after WWI, the invasion of Iraq, or Israel’s attacks on Lebanon in the 1970s and 80s, it has always ended in disaster and in planting the seeds of yet more conflict and bloodshed. 

There is no reason to believe this time would be any different. 

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Mitchell Plitnick
Mitchell Plitnick is the president of ReThinking Foreign Policy. He is the co-author, with Marc Lamont Hill, of Except for Palestine: The Limits of Progressive Politics. Mitchell’s previous positions include vice president at the Foundation for Middle East Peace, Director of the US Office of B’Tselem, and Co-Director of Jewish Voice for Peace.

You can find him on Twitter @MJPlitnick.