Will the next president follow Israel into war with Iran?
MANY AMERICAN presidents have dreamt of bringing peace to the Middle East. Some could claim successes: Jimmy Carter oversaw the Camp David accords between Israel and Egypt in 1978; Bill Clinton the Oslo accords with the Palestinians in 1993 and a peace treaty with Jordan the next year; Donald Trump the Abraham accords with Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Morocco in 2020.
The next president will almost certainly be grappling with war, inheriting the multi-front conflict between Israel and Iran’s “axis of resistance” that has raged for the past year. How to prevent a regional cataclysm, and how to avoid being dragged into another “forever war”?
Kamala Harris would probably hew to President Joe Biden’s awkward policy: support Israel’s right to defend itself, try to restrain its most dangerous actions, mitigate the humanitarian impact, seek ceasefires and keep alive the idea of Palestinian statehood. Mr Trump suggests that Israel should be given carte blanche. After Iran rained more than 180 ballistic missiles on Israel on October 1st, Mr Biden urged the Jewish state not to strike at Iran’s oil facilities or its nuclear sites. Mr Trump mocked such caution: “Hit the nuclear first and worry about the rest later.”
American presidents of all stripes have said Iran will not be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons. Yet none has bombed Iran’s sites; nor has any given Israel the green light to do so. That is because the costs of further inflaming the region are easy to imagine, and the rewards in terms of setting back Iran’s nuclear programme would be temporary and hard to reckon.
Neither Ms Harris nor Mr Trump has shown a desire to use US forces to bomb Iran. In office Mr Trump abandoned a nuclear deal with Iran, imposed “maximum pressure” through sanctions and in 2020 ordered the killing in Iraq of Qassem Suleimani, Iran’s supremo for foreign military operations. Then as now, hawks urged him to seize a rare opportunity to defeat Tehran’s regime. But Mr Trump hoped for a deal with Iran’s clerics. Notably, he held back from striking Iran even when it shot down an American drone and helped to bomb Saudi oil facilities sites in 2019.
A subtler question is whether or how an American president might enable an Israeli attack. Israel acting alone can probably inflict only limited damage. The greater America’s involvement, the greater the military blow. Help could range from sharing intelligence on targets to rescuing downed Israeli pilots, providing air-to-air refuelling, or actually taking part in bombing raids. In one of these scenarios, President Trump or President Harris might give Israel the nod for military action and, in the ensuing mêlée, feel compelled to finish the job or at least help its ally.
However the conflict with Iran evolves between now and January, the next president will almost certainly have to grapple with the aggravating Israeli prime minister. According to a forthcoming book by the journalist Bob Woodward, Joe Biden has privately referred to Binyamin Netanyahu as “a fucking liar”. To judge by her interview this week with CBS News, Ms Harris shares similar feelings. Mr Trump has at times been critical of Mr Netanyahu, not least because the Israeli prime minister recognised Mr Biden’s victory in 2020, but has also lined up with Republicans who think Israel can do no wrong.
Sympathy for Israel runs deep in American politics, as does antipathy for Iran. Asked which foreign country was America’s greatest adversary, Ms Harris unexpectedly replied: “Iran has American blood on their hands.” Nevertheless, Mr Biden has struggled to restrain Mr Netanyahu, who has played hardball in negotiations to secure a ceasefire in Gaza and shrugged off entreaties not to open another front in Lebanon. America has armed Israel and helped to shoot down missiles fired at it.
With his initial success against Hizbullah—killing its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and much of its military command—Mr Netanyahu feels vindicated. He now speaks of the “opportunity to change reality” in Lebanon and the region. He has urged the Lebanese people to cast off Hizbullah and even hinted at regime change in Iran, saying freedom “will come a lot sooner than people think”.
What about peace? Assuming the wars somehow die down, Ms Harris has expressed concern for Palestinians’ suffering but has set out no plans to achieve statehood. Mr Trump cares little for their cause; his officials have been supporters of Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank. Both will doubtless pursue an elusive Israel-Saudi normalisation deal. But the longer the wars go on, the higher the price the Saudis will demand. ■
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