Middle East at the Boiling Point—Israel Already Told: Don’t The West chooses dishonor, and gets war. P.David Hornik
Biden said to tell Netanyahu US won’t support Israeli response to an Iran attack (JNS.org)
“Let me be crystal clear…. If you launch a big attack on Iran, you’re on your own.”
So President Biden reportedly told Prime Minister Netanyahu on the night of April 14—when Iran launched over 300 missiles and drones at Israel, an attack that was almost totally rebuffed by Israel and a coalition the US had put together to help protect it.
The New York Times report goes on:
Mr. Netanyahu pushed back hard, citing the need to respond in kind to deter future attacks. “You do this,” Mr. Biden said forcefully, “and I’m out.” Ultimately, the aides noted, Mr. Netanyahu scaled back his response.
Less than four months later and—surprise, Iran, possibly in tandem with Hizballah and other proxies, is believed to be preparing an even bigger attack than that of April 14. After all, it paid no price for the April 14 attack. Israel indeed “scaled back its response” with a single strike on an Iranian air-defense system on April 19. Netanyahu, who “cit[ed] the need to respond in kind,” was right that a much greater response would have been needed “to deter future attacks.” But it’s too late for that now, and we are where we are.
Both Iran’s April 14 attack and its presumed upcoming attack were triggered by Israeli assassinations of terror leaders. Iran is trying to establish a new normal: Israel had better remove this weapon—assassinations of major terror leaders—from its arsenal, because otherwise it will find itself each time under a vastly larger, potentially devastating attack. Such assassinations, however, have been an important weapon for Israel for decades.
Does the Biden administration appreciate this time that it’s Iran, not Israel, that’s going too far—threatening to rain down destruction on a whole country, or parts of it, for the deaths of two individuals? There’s little ground for optimism. The headline says: “Don’t push it: Officials said warning Israel to limit response to potential Iran attack.” The report says:
Officials in the multinational US-led coalition—which is reportedly preparing to assist Israel in repelling an expected Iranian attack—have been preemptively warning Israel not to respond too strongly to such an attack….
“Don’t push it,” the unnamed officials have reportedly told Jerusalem. “Think carefully before you attack in return. The goal at the end of the day is not to lead to an all-out war.”
Israel doesn’t want an all-out war, but it wants a response to the anticipated Iranian attack that would be strong enough to deter further such attacks. The famous Biden “Don’t,” though, is now directed not at Iran but at Israel. Iran isn’t being told: Don’t threaten, don’t amass forces, don’t mobilize your terror proxies, don’t throw a whole region into mayhem . Israel, though, is told: Don’t do much about it. We don’t want any trouble.
After Neville Chamberlain forged his catastrophic Munich Agreement with Adolf Hitler, Winston Churchill told Chamberlain: “You were given the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour, and you will have war.” On the night of April 14, instead of giving Netanyahu a green light to attack Iran in kind, Biden chose dishonor—and now, presumably, we have war.
The US has indeed sent an impressive array of battleships and warplanes to the region. If they could be used, this time, not strictly defensively, but also—in tandem with Israel’s formidable capabilities—offensively, against Iran and possibly its proxies, then war could potentially achieve piece by making Iran, at last, pay prohibitive prices for its aggression. Unfortunately, though—in light of the Biden administration’s almost four years of constantly coddling Iran, enabling tens of billions of dollars to flow into its coffers, granting it immunity for all of its own and its proxies’ aggressions—that scenario is not likely. More likely is that Israel will find itself facing stark choices.
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