Whatever the president’s strategy is now, it isn’t deterring Iran. Far from it.
With conspicuous synchronicity, U.S.-based mainstream-media outlets are retailing the thinking within Joe Biden’s inner circle that has led them to pressure Israel into delaying for as long as possible a ground invasion of the Gaza Strip.
It’s not just about Israel or Hamas, the New York Times reports. “American officials also want more time to prepare for attacks on U.S. interests in the region from Iran-backed groups, which officials said are likely to intensify once Israel moves its forces fully into Gaza,” the dispatch warned.
Axios reveals that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s fears regarding the “prospect of a significant escalation of attacks on our troops and our people” that could follow an Israeli incursion into Gaza is an expression of the concern inside Biden’s cabinet about the likelihood that efforts to deter Iran have shown few signs of bearing fruit. Moreover, contingencies in the Middle East that draw the U.S. directly into a conflagration could signal a window of opportunity to America’s revanchist adversaries, notably China.
Beyond the precarious geopolitics of the moment, there are domestic political considerations with which the White House must grapple. “Should the Israel-Gaza violence spread, a wider Middle East conflict could also hurt the global economy, pushing up energy prices that have been elevated for two years and that fed inflation—for which American consumers have blamed Biden,” the Wall Street Journal observed.
All told, the press is painting a portrait that betrays as superficial the assurances the White House has provided Israel in support of its right to self-defense. To the contrary, the White House is gravely concerned about the consequences that will accompany that support — maybe more so than about those that would follow Israeli acquiescence to the perpetual threat of genocidal terrorism. “It could all veer off the rails really quickly,” one unnamed administration official told Axios about the situation in the Middle East. “The whole region could be in conflict.” But a broader conflict may not be as evitable as the administration appears to believe. Indeed, it may have already begun.
In the weeks since the October 7 massacre in Israel, Iran’s terrorist proxies and militias have committed a variety of attacks and provocations in the region, targeting not just Israeli interests but America’s, too. Today, the Iran-backed Islamic Resistance in Iraq claimed responsibility for an attack on a U.S.-occupied garrison near the Jordanian border. The attack follows a series of similar assaults with rockets and drones on the U.S.-occupied Ain al-Assad base in western Iraq. Last week, an outpost in southern Syria used by U.S. forces to train local militias tasked with containing elements of the Islamic State came under attack by drones. “One drone was shot down, but another caused minor injuries,” according to one official who spoke with the Associated Press. Last Friday, an American Navy destroyer shot down multiple drones and missiles fired from inside Yemen by the Iran-backed Houthi militia group. The attack was “potentially headed for Israel,” according to the Pentagon, before the United States intervened on Jerusalem’s behalf.
The region is already lighting up, and every indication suggests that Iran is “actively facilitating” this escalation, according to the White House. Nor is the United States a bystander passively engaged in the art of dissuasion. It is both a target of these attacks and a participant in the effort to interdict assaults on Israeli territory. The increasing tempo of attacks on U.S. positions and the vital assets of its regional partners is reminiscent of a similar campaign Iran embarked upon in 2019. Then as now, the president was reluctant to respond directly to those attacks for fear that such a response would provoke a wider regional war, but the provocations did not end until the United States responded disproportionately with the strike that neutralized Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Qasem Soleimani. For that, Tehran retaliated against the United States, but the Pentagon deemed the response “defensive and proportional” and unilaterally declared deterrence restored.
It may be too optimistic to believe that a similar course of action is available to the United States today when Israel commences a ground invasion of Gaza — a conflict that seems likely to produce a response from the Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorist group in Lebanon, assuming Israel decides against a preemptive strike on Hezbollah’s positions timed to coincide with the invasion of the Strip. But whatever the president’s strategy is now, it isn’t deterring Iran. Far from it. If the behavior of Iran’s proxies across the Middle East is any indication, Iran is emboldened. Eventually, deterrence will have to be restored again. It would be best if that confrontation occurred at a time and place of our choosing rather than Iran’s.