Filenews 11 April 2024 - by Hal Brands
The U.S. president's Joe Biden Middle East policy hangs in the balance. Ceasefire negotiations in Gaza have reached a critical stage. Yemeni Houthi attacks are blocking maritime traffic and hitting the U.S. Navy. Biden's support for Israel remains strong, but after months of tension, his relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is becoming more strained publicly. And as November approaches, a war with tragic humanitarian consequences is hurting Biden's standing among his progressive supporters at home.
But things can always get more complicated — and uglier — in the Middle East, and they probably will. The war in Gaza could simply be the prologue to two additional fronts, which could prove even more subversive.
First front: Hezbollah
The first possible front concerns the risk of war between Israel and Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group. When these sides clashed in 2006, southern Lebanon was devastated. Since then, Israeli officials have watched with concern as Hezbollah — a paramilitary force, resembling Hamas in steroids — has amassed more advanced weaponry, reportedly including some 150,000 rockets.
The Netanyahu government nearly pre-emptively hit Hezbollah after the October 7 attacks in Israel, fearing the group would exploit Israel's focus on Hamas. The Israelis avoided it, in part because Biden sent a powerful naval task force to show Israel — and everyone else — that the U.S. was covering it up. But the deeper problem has not been solved.
Few Israeli citizens want to take the risk that Hezbollah could do to them what Hamas did to their compatriots in the south. Many communities in northern Israel have turned into ghost towns, tens of thousands of residents have moved. Israel is facing a de facto reduction of its national territory, something that no government, under Netanyahu or any potential successor, can accept.
The result is a violent back and forth, approaching war. Hezbollah uses anti-tank missiles and other weapons to target Israeli soldiers and civilians. Israel responds with strikes against Hezbollah's military infrastructure, some of its key commanders and its Iranian backers. The most dramatic such attack was the recent April 1 airstrike that killed high-ranking Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officials at Tehran's consulate in Damascus — and brought ominous, if vague, threats of retaliation from Iran.
An all-out war between Hezbollah and Israel would be more devastating than the Gaza conflict. Because Hezbollah is Iran's most critical ally, it could drag Tehran along as well. Hezbollah and its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, have good reasons to avoid such a conflict, including the memory of the group's 2006 pounding. But Nasrallah may not want to withdraw his fighters back to the Litani River in southern Lebanon as Israel demands.
A crisis on Israel's northern border will come, probably once the fiercest fighting in Gaza is over and the Israeli government can turn its attention to other threats. Whether this conflict will be settled by diplomatic compromise, such as the one the Biden administration is seeking to broker, or by force, as Israeli officials threaten, is not yet clear.
Second front: Iran and the nuclear bomb
The second front concerns Iran, like so many other Tehran-related issues in the Middle East. Iran, like Hezbollah, would prefer to avoid a full-scale confrontation with Israel and the US. But that's partly because the status quo offers many advantages.
The chaos in the Middle East is hindering, albeit temporarily, rapprochement between Iran's main enemies: Israel and Saudi Arabia. The chaos allows the Houthis, whom Tehran armed, to strike at the US. It also creates a situation behind which Iran can move towards creating a bomb.
Iran's nuclear program is now so mature that Tehran could have enough high-content uranium for three nuclear weapons in just two weeks. Building an active nuclear weapon would take more time, perhaps a year. Concerns are growing at this point. In March, the Guardian reported that "in recent months high-ranking Iranian figures have questioned Tehran's commitment to an exclusively civilian nuclear program."
General Michael Kurilla, head of US Central Command, says an Iranian bomb would "change the Middle East... forever." It would give Tehran a nuclear shield behind which it could support organizations and impose itself on enemies. It would terrorize leaders in Jerusalem, Riyadh, Abu Dhabi and elsewhere. It would reshape the dynamics of regional powers, even if Tehran never fired a missile with a nuclear warhead.
The U.S. and Israel may soon have to decide whether to let Iran keep moving toward the nuclear bomb or stop it with tougher measures, from tougher sanctions to military strikes.
The Biden administration has mostly remained silent on the Iranian nuclear issue. Perhaps he is trying, behind the scenes, to negotiate a suspension agreement. Or maybe he doesn't have good answers to a difficult challenge and tries to focus on one problem at a time.
Either way, it is wishful thinking to expect that the end of the war in Gaza will lead to a sustained regional decompression. It will likely lead to other dangerous phases of a deep, protracted security crisis in the Middle East.
Performance – Editing: S. Ketidjian
