Conservatives have their knives are out for President Biden, no matter how unseemly this may be at a time of international crisis.  In Israel, the parties have closed ranks during this moment of national emergency.  Not so in the United States. 

One line of conservative criticism runs as follows.  President Biden came to office intending, in part, to replace great-power politics with a heavy emphasis on alternative priorities.  First and foremost, this meant climate change, but also included a renewed emphasis on human rights as these are understood in the Democratic party.  Before Russia’s attack on Ukraine, the President hoped to “park” Russia as an issue. 

He also harbored a grand vision for the Middle East, one which would allow the United States to reduce its involvement there in favor of the Far East.  On the one hand, he hoped to revive a working relationship with Iran, wrecked by the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the multi-national nuclear agreement.  On the other hand, he hoped to accelerate the “normalization of Saudi-Israeli relations.”  This new regional axis of….[1] would encourage other Arab states to do the same.  Implicitly, the alignment could shoulder more of the burden of against Iran. 

In the conservative view, which is also that of Israel, Iran has disdained President Biden’s offer of a renewed relationship.  It refused to rejoin the nuclear agreement.  It wrung $6 billion out of American control as the price for releasing a handful of hostages.  Now, the conservative argument goes, “there is no doubt that Iran trained, supported, advised and equipped the [Hamas] killers.”[2]  Iran’s goals, it is said, are regional rather than centered on Gaza or even Palestine.  The war between Israel and Hamas, once begun, may be stoked up into a much wider conflict.  Israel, the United States, and America’s friends in the Middle East will find themselves assailed from all sides. 

All or most of this could be true.  The vast quantity and improved quality of the missiles fired at Israel by Hamas seems to indicate a big up-grade in Iran’s support for aggressive action by Hamas.  Still, critics stop short of saying that Iran planned or incited the attacks.  Hamas seems to be dominated by brutal fanatics.  Brutal fanatics aren’t necessarily stupid.[3]  It isn’t impossible to imagine that a more competent class of fanatics has emerged in the leadership Hamas.  Maybe they figured out that it would be necessary to blind Israeli intelligence by stopping telecommunications and “playing back” Palestinian informants of Israel’s intelligence services.  Maybe they figured out on their own the many vulnerabilities in the border defenses of an evidently complacent Israel.  Israel’s leaders (and perhaps many ordinary Israeli) are not going to be comfortable admitting that “we got played by a bunch of Arabs.” 

We’ve been here before.  It was 2003 and the “undoubted” enemy was Iraq.  The “intelligence” said Iraq posed a real danger from its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, and even of nuclear weapons.  Conservatives clamored for action.  Respected foreign policy Gumbys among the Democrat leadership[4] supported action.  It didn’t end well. 

So, some kind of action against Iran may well be necessary.  But slow any rush to war. 

---

[1] Axis of what?  The Serpent Prince and Benjamin Netanyahu?  Hard to label that when children might be reading. 

[2] Walter Russell Mead, “Hamas’s Global Test for Biden,” WSJ, 10 October 2023. 

[3] See: The Second World War. 

[4] Notably Joe Biden, John Kerry, Hilary Clinton, Chuck Schumer, and Diane Feinstein.