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Biden Administration Walking a Fine Line in the Middle East
Supporting allied Israel against the terrorists of Hamas while preventing the conflict from escalating is a difficult proposition. Perhaps impossible.
“Biden threads a needle with US strikes against Iranian-backed militias,” wrote Stephen Collinson for CNN on Friday.
“President Joe Biden’s show of strength could set off its own cycle of consequences that could rock a region already on edge,” Collinson mused nervously. “While the US is underscoring that the strikes have nothing to do with the confrontation between Israel and Hamas, such distinctions may be blurred in Arab nations, where public fury is mounting over the deaths of Palestinian civilians in Israeli airstrikes in Gaza.”
The Biden administration has been working hard on deterrence in the region these past weeks, supporting Israel while attempting to dissuade any of the region’s other bad actors from widening the conflict.
One major sticking point: Iran.
“Today, at President Biden’s direction, U.S. military forces conducted self-defense strikes on two facilities in eastern Syria used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and affiliated groups,” wrote Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III in an October 26 statement.