Bottom Line
- Against the backdrop of the evolving Gaza War, the United States, Iran, and their respective regional partners have engaged in a complex geo-strategic battle, akin to a game of chess. Each side has attempted to influence the regional balance of power while ensuring that those moves would not trigger a full-blown war.
- Iran seemed to have won some points in the first round of the game by striking Israel and in the process sabotaging its normalization with Saudi Arabia. It thus eroded the strategic position of the United States in the Middle East.
- The United States responded by launching a counteroffensive aimed at protecting Israel, deterring Iran and its proxies. It is also promoting a diplomatic initiative to deal with the Palestinian problem that could lead to an Israeli-Saudi detente and re-assert US status in the region.
The
Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 came out of the blue. The Palestinian terrorist group struck at a time when the White House believed there wasn’t any major threat to stability in the Middle East and was expecting a process of normalizing the relationship between Israel and Saudi Arabia. No one anticipated a new Arab-Israeli war.
President Joe Biden’s administration took time to assess the situation prior to formulating a geo-strategic response. It then drew up the outline of an American response, that would secure US interests and manage those of its regional partner, namely Israel and the Arab-Sunni states.
As the US government saw it, Hamas, a close partner of Tehran and financial and military dependent of Tehran, was the driving force in the crisis. The Palestinian terrorist group had hoped the surprise attack on Israel, coupled with the kidnapping of close to 250 hostages, would nullify the deterrence capability of its adversary and sabotage the American plan to normalize Saudi-Israeli relations.
In that context, in addition to giving Hamas the green light to attack Israel, the Iranian government also gave a green light to its regional allies, including Hizballah guerrillas in Lebanon, to launch a series of
attacks on northern Israel . Shiite groups in Syria and Iraq and Yemen’s Houthi rebels also carried out attacks.
Policymakers in Washington were worried that Israel was distraught by the Hamas attack, the kidnapping of the hostages, Hizballah’s blitzes, and the loss of their deterrence power. As a result, US officials were concerned that
Israel’s military response could transform into a
major regional military conflagration involving Israel and Iran, especially if the Israel Defense Forces were to attack Hizballah’s bases in Lebanon.
In case of a war between Israel and Iran, the United States would have little choice but to come to the Jewish state’s assistance and find its military forces directly drawn into the new war in the Middle East.
Biden Bear-Hugs Netanyahu
Against this backdrop, Biden decided that to avert such a scenario the United States needed to provide a sense of security to its ally, thus giving US military and diplomatic support as it launched an attack aimed at destroying the Hamas military and political infrastructure.
Biden, therefore, flew to Israel to demonstrate
American support . He also dispatched two American aircraft carriers and Marine units to the Middle East to deter Iran and Hizballah from making offensive moves against Israel.
The initial “bear-hug” that Biden gave Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as the media referred to it, proved to be an effective approach by Biden, who succeeded in pressing the Israeli leader to refrain from attacking Hizballah’s sites in Lebanon and to allow some humanitarian aid into the besieged Gaza Strip.
The US government has also expressed
reservations about the way Israel has conducted military operations in Gaza, including the use of airstrikes that resulted in the killing of thousands of Palestinian civilians and the destruction of entire neighborhoods.
The Israeli approach was condemned by the majority of
UN members , especially by those belonging to the so-called Global South. Some European governments also expressed reservations over Israel’s conduct. Israel was also criticized by left-leaning Democratic lawmakers,
such as Sen. Bernie Sanders, who called on the White House to press the Israeli government to move towards a ceasefire in Gaza. The idea has been rejected by those who insist that they would not end the fighting without the destruction of Hamas.
Meanwhile, the Israeli government came under public pressure to negotiate the release of the
hostages held by Hamas through Qatari and Egyptian mediation. And, indeed, it agreed to suspend fighting for a few days on November 30, 2023, to allow for the release of about 100 hostages.
Biden-Netanyahu Clash
There were signs of growing tensions between
Washington and Jerusalem over postwar strategy.
The Biden administration has indicated that it wanted to see the Palestinian Authority—currently ruling the West Bank—take over control of the Gaza Strip after Hamas is removed from power. Washington has also hoped to launch a
diplomatic initiative in support of Saudi Arabia and other Arab-Sunni governments. Under this plan, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip would become the nucleus of an independent Palestinian State that would live side by side in peace with Israel.
Netanyahu, who heads the most right-wing government in Israel’s history, has rejected the idea of handing over the control of Gaza to the Palestinian Authority and expressed
opposition to taking steps to establish an independent Palestinian state.
But Israel's dependency on American military and diplomatic support has left the government no choice but to change tactics in the Gaza Strip and to shift to a new phase that relies less on airpower, has narrow targets, and results in fewer civilian casualties. In any case, while Israel may have killed hundreds of Hamas fighters there were
no indications that the movement’s top leaders have been affected.
At the same time, around 130 people were abducted from Israel on October 7, including several Americans, are believed to be still in
captivity in Gaza. Hamas has ruled out any further hostage releases until Israel agrees to a “full cessation of aggression.” Israel has rejected that demand, but may eventually have to agree if it wants to see the hostages return alive.
The Strategic Stakes
On one level, the war in Gaza could be seen as just another round of fighting between Israel and Palestine, or a phase in the century-old struggle between Jews and Arabs over the territory of Palestine/Land of Israel.
But this time the danger is that the war between Hamas and Israel could not be contained as a local ethnic-religious conflict. In a way, the role Iran played in orchestrating the war could lead to the regionalization of the conflict in the form of a military confrontation between Israel, a nuclear power, and Iran, which has come close to acquiring its own nuclear military capability.
