Not enough has been written about disaster of the Biden administration in the Middle East. To attenuate the perception is the bias despite everything still favorable media mainstreambut a warning level has truly been reached, beyond which the risk is the redefinition of the balance of deterrence and therefore of power in the region, to the detriment primarily of Israel but also of Western interests.
The Iranian attack
A week later, we now know that Iran’s unprecedented attack on Israel was anything but demonstrative, as it seemed in the early hours. Along with drones and cruise missiles, at least one hundred ballistic missiles were launched towards the Jewish state. The Iranian intention was to saturate Israeli air defense systems and hit hard, hurt.
True, 99 percent of them were intercepted and the attack was successfully foiled, albeit with the probably decisive help of US, British and Jordanian fighter planes. In Tehran it still served as a test of the defenses of Israel and its allies, but above all, just having conceived and implemented it represents an affirmation of status and a open challenge to regional balances.
The new normal
Far from a failure therefore: Tehran is forcing the United States and Israel to accept how new normality not just the daily firing of rockets by Hezbollahof the rebels Houthis in the Red Sea and the other acronyms of the Axis of Resistance in Syria and Iraq, but even a direct Iranian attack. Which, as well as being unacceptable, is extremely dangerous.
That the defensive shield has held up (for the moment) does not mean safety. Simply intercept and shoot down the missiles they launch at you, without dissuading those who launched them by hitting theirs. assets strategic, it is not deterrence. Indeed, it is the best recipe for another endless war.
Even more so, therefore, the Iranian attack last Saturday cannot remain unanswered. And instead, the Biden administration perseveres with the leitmotif since the beginning of the crisis, since October 7: pressure on Israel to dissuade it from responding adequately to its enemies. The fear of escalation is stronger than the will to re-establish deterrence, but the unintended effect is precisely to encourage enemies, to chase escalation.
The pressing request for a ceasefire, the open opposition to the operation in Rafah, have weakened Israel’s position and brought hostage negotiations to a standstill.
US deterrence has eroded to such an extent that the Iranian regime immediately after ignoring the pathetic “don’t” of Biden, he promptly drawn its red linewarning Israel not to respond.
The message to the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the United States would not participate in any retaliation against Iran was devastating. The Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi has been able to argue that the “military option” against the Islamic Republic is no longer on the table, contrary to what every US president has said since 1979. And if Tehran simply does not believe that the United States will undertake any retaliation, this will it make them more or less aggressive? Does it bring the feared escalation closer or further away?
Escalation underway since October 7th
The reality is that Tehran’s escalation has been ongoing since October 7 but the Biden administration has recklessly chosen to ignore it. Iranian support for Hamas, Tehran’s direction in planning the October 7 attack is no longer in doubt. As well as Iranian intelligence support to Houthis to locate and target ships passing through the Red Sea. Over 170 god attacks proxy Iranians against US bases throughout the Middle East, leading up to the attack on the Tower 22 in Jordan, which resulted in the death of three American soldiers. And last Saturday the direct attack on Israel. Isn’t that still enough to talk about escalation?
In order not to risk an escalation, Washington de facto he is undergoing it. And the risk, as we have repeatedly pointed out, is that sooner or later he will have to respond. But the longer he waits, the more he allows Tehran to raise the bar, the more harsh and therefore dangerous the response will have to be.
Israel’s response
Israel will probably respond to Iran, but the fact that it was unable to do so immediately, that it has to negotiate the methods and timing of the response with Washington, undermines its deterrence and power status in the region.
To be effective, the Israeli response will have to affect strategic interests of the regime: the nuclear program, the leadership of the Revolutionary Guards and the regime itself, military bases, production facilities and launch sites for missiles and drones, oil platforms and refineries.
We will see. Meanwhile, Iran, Russia and other rivals are learning from US weakness. The paradox is that when Biden says “don’t”, don’t do itthat’s exactly when they decide to do it, he noted Gerard Baker on the Wall Street Journal: “If we continue to defer to rather than deter our adversaries, Beijing will surely respond like Iran, Russia and terrorists worldwide when this president says Don’t”.
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