Have you seen the bumper sticker that says, “War is not the answer”? When I see it, I think, “it depends on the question.”
If the question is: “what stopped Hitler?” then war is the answer. If the question is: “what paved the way to ending slavery in America?” the answer is the same. War.
I thought of that bumper sticker when Secretary of State Blinken said that Israel has a right to secure its people from attacks by Hezbollah — attacks that have driven 70,000 Israelis from their homes — but that war is not the solution. In fact, though, a war that stops Hezbollah from bombarding Israel and that renders it incapable of further attacks for several years seems like the only solution.
What’s Blinken’s solution? Feckless as ever, he proposes a 21-day ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah “to provide space for diplomacy” — three weeks the Iranian-backed terrorists desperately need to patch up their ability to communicate and coordinate following Israel’s successful beeper operation and the killing of key Hezbollah leaders.
Israel has rejected the idea of throwing Hezbollah this lifeline. It says it will only reverse its plan for a massive attack on Hezbollah if the terrorists stop bombing Israel’s cities, towns, and villages and if they pull far back from the Israel-Lebanon border.
Israel’s position is correct. No country with the capacity to fight back would accept the constant bombardment of its populated areas, and certainly not bombardment that has caused an estimated 70,000 people to leave their homes, many of which have been destroyed. And no rational country would give its enemy a chance to regroup following successful attacks on its communications and command structure.
For Hezbollah a similar calculus should yield a different result. The smart move for Hezbollah would be to stop the bombardment, pull back, fix its communications systems and chain of command, and live to fight another day.
But Hezbollah can’t make this move without losing face to a degree it considers unacceptable. It’s not just that Hezbollah vowed to keep attacking Israel until there’s a ceasefire in Gaza. It’s also that Israel humiliated Hezbollah with those exploding pagers. To retreat now, even just strategically, would pile humiliation on humiliation.
Perhaps even more importantly, Iran, Hezbollah’s patron, doesn’t view a retreat as in its interests. The mullahs don’t want to see their two main proxies — Hamas and Hezbollah — humbled by Israel. Nor do they want the pressure on Israel from the north to ease.
Few Iranians are likely to die in an Israel-Hezbollah war. Plenty of Israelis might. No wonder the prospect of that war doesn’t frighten the mullahs much. If anything, it might appeal to them.
This is reality. No amount of “space for diplomacy” can alter it.
Biden (or whoever is running the show in D.C.),can take some blame for the impending all-out Israel-Hezbollah war. Had he/they not pressured Israel into proceeding less aggressively in Gaza than the Netanyahu government wanted to, that war might be over by now and a ceasefire might be in place. Hezbollah could then stop bombing Israel without losing much face.
It’s fair to ask why Team Biden is so intent on preventing all-out war in Lebanon. Israel seems well positioned (or as well positioned as it ever will be) to win. Hezbollah is an enemy of the U.S. and has a fair amount of American blood on its hands. Iran, too, is our enemy and also has our blood on its hands.
Our position should mirror Israel’s: Either Hezbollah stops bombing Israel and pulls back or we’ll strongly back Israel’s war against it. Not with our troops, of course. Israel isn’t asking for that. But with arms, materiel, and moral support — as in Ukraine.
One might try to explain the administration’s attempt to prevent the war in terms of its innate caution — the same caution that has caused it to hold Ukraine back in its fight against Russia. But Biden has been as clear as he can be at his advanced age that it’s up to Ukraine whether to fight and how long to fight. His only interference has been on the matter of how to fight.
Why won’t Biden take the same approach with Israel? It’s a more longstanding U.S. ally than Ukraine. And as much as I despise Russia and consider it our enemy, it’s not as much of an enemy as Hezbollah and Iran.
Furthermore, Israel has been the victim of the same kinds of aggression from Iran’s proxies that Ukraine has suffered from Russia — a brutal invasion in the south and constant bombardment in the north.
So no, we can’t explain Biden’s feckless approach in the Middle East by citing caution alone.
Can we explain it by citing Michigan? The desire to win that state for Harris probably enters the equation. Yet, I’m pretty sure Biden’s policy towards Israel won’t change much after the election — at least not in favor of Israel.
Does the explanation reside in simple hostility towards Israel? I think so. Maybe not on Biden’s part, but on the part of the people whose advice he follows.
In saying this, I don’t want to discount the administration’s desire to appease Iran. It was the centerpiece of Barack Obama’s Middle East policy, and regained prominence when Biden became president.
In Obama’s case, the desire to appease wasn’t due to fear of the mullahs. Obama, fool that he is, genuinely believed that Iran held the key to peace in the region. If the U.S. would only mend its ways — including a far less cozy relationship with Israel, for which Obama seems to have more contempt than affection — Iran would see the light and become our peace partner.
A decade later, does Team Biden believe this? I don’t think so. Its appeasement probably is based on fear and instinct.
But it’s not clear why Biden fears backing Israel in a fight against an Iranian proxy more than he fears backing Ukraine in its fight against Russia directly. After all, Putin has nuclear weapons.
In the end, I see no escape from the conclusion that anti-Israeli sentiment is part of what’s behind the administration’s attempt to throw Hezbollah a lifeline. But whatever the reason, the attempt is indefensible, in my view.
I still can't decide whether the Biden bunch are deranged, stupid or genuinely evil in the way the State Department was during WWII when it refused to issue visas to Jews fleeing Nazi Europe. I believe Iran was on the verge of seeking a way out of this (contrary to your statement, Iran does not want to lose Hezbollah, its most important proxy at this point ) when this ill timed demand for a ceasefire (made public while Netanyahu was in the air) along with a false leak that Israel had agreed to it, gave them renewed reason to think Israel might be forced to back down. No thinking person could possibly think this is a good idea so I am going with evil.
Brilliant analysis. Jim Dueholm