Israeli Victory Is Critical to U.S. Interests A timely show of American strength would deter Russian meddling and Chinese opportunism. By Seth Cropsey
The outbreak of war in the Middle East means the Biden administration has to manage a complex strategic crisis. American objectives must be to ensure Israeli freedom of action for the next six months while deterring any Russian responses in the Middle East and beyond. A burst of U.S. support followed by insistence on “restraint” won’t do. The Eurasian rimland has been set alight. The war begun in Ukraine will spread absent prudent, decisive action.
Hamas is the most virulent and politically savvy of Israel’s terrorist enemies. The complexity of the operation it staged on Saturday and Sunday raises questions about Israeli competence. This isn’t simply an intelligence failure—although intelligence is part of the problem, since warning signs of this confrontation have been apparent for months. The Iran-Saudi deal cleared the way for a direct attack. Hamas and Iran have solidified ties with Russia to ensure some sort of great-power support. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps stepped up activities in the West Bank, and undoubtedly in Gaza, in preparation. Yet the issue here is strategic, rather than operational. Israel, and presumably the U.S., was caught completely by surprise, suggesting that those responsible for strategic forecasting made an error on par with Pearl Harbor, 9/11 or the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
Hamas is a full-fledged member of the axis of resistance, the alliance of proxies and terrorist groups constructed by Iran’s foremost strategist, the now-deceased IRGC Gen. Qasem Soleimani, during the late 2000s and 2010s. The axis’ objective is the destruction of Israel. It sees that Israel’s greatest assets are its high-tech military and its alliance with the U.S. By drawing the U.S. into the ill-conceived Iran deal—and, as per recent revelations, cultivating an intelligence and subversion network inside the U.S. government—Tehran has weakened the U.S.-Israel relationship.
The Hamas offensive constitutes the first step of a broader campaign against an increasingly isolated Israel. The Jewish state maintains an effective conscript military with significant offensive potential. But Israel is a nation of only nine million. Total mobilization can’t be sustained for more than a few months. Israel is also highly sensitive to casualties as a small liberal democracy, making it harder to fight a long war.
The current campaign is therefore designed to draw Israel into a three-front struggle. Hamas’s barbarity demands an operation into Gaza that will require 30,000 combat troops at least, and will take weeks, perhaps months. The Israeli government can resist pressure to move into Gaza immediately, and instead cordon off the Palestinian pseudo-statelet, but this will trigger hand-wringing in Europe and at the United Nations.
Meanwhile, another intifada seems all but guaranteed, with potential for spillover into Israeli Arab communities akin to the unrest of 2021. This will demand more military deployments and put more societal stress on Israel. Finally, Iran’s most powerful partners, Lebanese Hezbollah and the Syrian Fourth and Fifth divisions, menace Israel from the north. Hezbollah has already threatened to rain rockets on Israel if it moves into Gaza, raising the possibility of a Third Lebanon War.
None of these conflicts can be won quickly. All will require several months of traditional counterinsurgent and counterterror operations of the type the IDF has mounted in the West Bank for decades but on a larger scale, and a constant military presence even after victory. All will extract a high price in blood, likely thousands of soldiers dead and more than 10,000 wounded. And if another Lebanon war begins, Israeli civilians will be displaced in the north, compounding social pressure and raising the odds of long-term economic disruption.
Israel can win this war. It won’t be like other wars Israel has fought, but with time and international support to conduct large scale combat operations in fortified urban areas, Hamas and Hezbollah can be defeated.
The U.S. has a vital interest in Israeli victory, which will clarify that the Jewish state is the Middle East’s most powerful military-strategic actor. Victory would also give the Arab states an incentive to engage in a legitimate rapprochement with Israel, and thereby provide the U.S., through Israel, with the foundations of a real Middle Eastern coalition fit for a period of great-power conflict.
Israeli defeat may well mean the dissolution of the Jewish state. This would be a moral tragedy, and the U.S. must make sure it doesn’t happen. Even a weaker Israel would be a catastrophe. The Gulf Arabs would move quickly to fill the vacuum. At a minimum, the U.S. would be forced to expend enormous amounts of blood and treasure to maintain its influence in Europe and the Middle East. The risk of great-power war would be high.
Moving the USS Gerald Ford to the Eastern Mediterranean indicates the U.S. is willing to put military assets on the line. This will deter potential escalation by Russia, as Moscow still retains a Syrian presence despite the Ukraine war’s demands, as well as Iran should it decide to exploit the war initiated by its client, Hamas. Yet more is needed. Israeli requests for air-defense interceptors, guided weapons and ammunition must be met immediately. The U.S. should conduct shows of force, executing strategic bomber flights in the Western Indian Ocean and Mediterranean to demonstrate to Iran that if intervention is necessary, the U.S. can rapidly deploy the combat power needed to finish the fight. At the U.N., meanwhile, the U.S. can exercise its veto to block any major attempts to restrain Israeli actions.
There is some risk that American attention on Europe and the Middle East will trigger a Chinese probe either against Taiwan or elsewhere in the “first island chain.” The U.S. should strongly consider a submarine surge in the Indo-Pacific, while also following its Middle Eastern strategic bomber demonstrations with a similar set of actions near the first island chain. The point isn’t that China is likely to move, but rather that it must be reminded of the American military’s ability to deliver firepower on target.
The worst choice would be to continue the Biden administration’s policy of equivocation toward Iran and pressure on Israel. This war will spiral out, either directly or indirectly, absent clear guardrails. American power need not be applied, only demonstrated, to deter another Eurasian rimland war.
Mr. Cropsey is the president of the Yorktown Institute. He served as a naval officer and as deputy undersecretary of the Navy and is author of “Mayday” and “Seablindness.”
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