America's new proxy war

Israel and the US are effectively engaged in a low-intensity proxy war with Iran

I’ve written for UnHerd about how Israel’s war on Gaza has already expanded into a low-intensity proxy war with Iran — one that the US, as a crucial ally of Israel in the region, is caught up in as well. For now, all sides have been calibrating their actions to avoid the situation from escalating into a a full-blown regional war, which no one really wants, but the situation could easily spiral out of control. The Yemenite Houthis’ seizing of an Israeli-linked cargo ship along a crucial Red Sea shipping route, for example, signals a dangerous escalation. The Biden administration is understandably concerned about the prospect of a potential military escalation in the region. As I write in the piece:

As it is, Washington’s support for Israel’s is already compromising its reputation in the region. According to a diplomatic cable obtained by CNN earlier this month, American diplomats in Arab countries have warned the Biden administration that its robust support for Israel “is losing us Arab publics for a generation” and is seen across large parts of the Middle East “as material and moral culpability in what they consider to be possible war crimes”. The Washington Post also recently reported, based on the statements of Arab leaders and analysts, that that US support for Israel’s actions “risks lasting damage to Washington’s standing in the region and beyond”.

This is a massive setback for an administration that, prior to October 7, was boasting about the success of its strategy of Arab-Israeli rapprochement as a way of reasserting US influence in the region at the expense of Iran and China. For today, it’s not just Iran that is benefiting from this situation — but also China and Russia.

As the journalist Branko Marcetic noted, this is “a powerful reminder that the Biden administration’s current policy of unconditional support for the Israeli government’s war on Gaza carries with it no upsides and only downsides in regards to US interests”. So why does Washington continue to forcefully support Israel? Almost two decades ago, John Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt highlighted the power of the American pro-Israeli lobby, which had “managed to divert US foreign policy as far from what the American national interest would otherwise suggest, while simultaneously convincing Americans that US and Israeli interests are essentially identical”. Today, this appears to be truer than ever.

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Best regards,

Thomas Fazi

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