The US Is Now Fighting A Regional War In The Middle East Even If The Biden Administration Won’t Admit It

By: Hana Ashraf Ahmed Elhessy                   

Introduction:

In fact, it was not announced at all but the US is now embroiled in a regional war against an alliance of Iran-backed militant groups spread from Syria to Yemen, that war is being conducted with little congressional oversight, and with little acknowledgement from the Biden administration of the scale of the fighting.

President Biden is proving himself, by some measures, the most pro-Israel president in American history, starting on the very day of the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel, Biden has emotionally expressed his solidarity with Israel and affirmed its need to fight fire with fire. He has expedited military assistance and, most dramatically, he flew to Israel and sat as part of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war cabinet. While there certainly is a time-honored tradition of a “special relationship” between the U.S. and Israel, Biden has gone where no other U.S. president ever has gone during one of Israel’s wars—not only physically but also politically and strategically.

Biden’s predecessors have traditionally decided how to handle Arab-Israeli wars by making calculations about geopolitics and American politics. Often they prioritized limiting the impact of these wars on U.S. strategic goals. The domestic political position of each president also shaped his actions. Biden’s support for Israel, by contrast, has been more fulsome and less qualified. It’s also less clear that he’s acting in a way congruent with U.S. strategy and his own political needs.

Richard hall:

Richard Hall is the Independent’s senior US correspondent, he moved to the US from his previous posting in Beirut, Lebanon, where he was Middle East correspondent, he reported from across the region on the Syrian civil war, the rise and fall of the Islamic State and the 2015 refugee crisis, he is now based in New York and is interested in politics, class, and US foreign policy, and he was the author of this article ,he writes about the US and its regional war in the middle east even if the Biden Administration won’t admit it.

We can divide this article into several ideas:

The first one: Biden’s full support for Israel

US President Joe Biden announced that he would ask Congress for an “unprecedented” military aid package for Israel, and to provide an aid package to the Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, worth $100 million, while warning Israel against committing mistakes similar to those committed by the United States after The events of September 11, 2001.

In a speech before leaving Israel at the end of a short visit that lasted less than 8 hours, to announce Washington’s support for Tel Aviv, the American President renewed his warning to “any party that wishes to expand the scope of the current conflict” in the Palestinian territories.

The stated goal of the administration from early in the Gaza War was to prevent the conflict from spreading and becoming a regional war but they don’t admit it and continue to plod forward so the president Biden appears to be committed to continuing to bomb some places and groups such like The Houthis and Yemen until the Attacks on Israel lands are halted.

The second idea: the concept of the” unity of Fronts”

Republic has spent years building a network of allied militant groups opposed to Israel under a concept referred to as “unity of the fronts”. Those groups – which include the Syrian government, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, Houthi rebels in Yemen and various Shia militant groups in Iraq and Syria – have been furnished with military training, financial support, missiles, and the ability to make their own missiles. All of them have now been drawn into the fight in some form, but it was the Lebanese group Hezbollah that gave the Us the most concern.

The Third idea: The Houthis’ s reaction to America Support for Israel

In light of the racist violence in Gaza, the Houthis pledged to continue targeting the Israeli lands and ships until the aggression against Gaza stops, despite this, the Israeli forces did not responded, and agreed to the trade defense system and filing a complaint with the UN Security Council ,as the US military presence in the region increases, the Houthis engage in  a balancing act that could change the direction of the war ,however  Yemen appears ideally placed – both politically and geographically – to target Israel without regionalizing or escalating  the war on Gaza ,which help the Houthis from re-establishing popular support among their base  without confronting a major threat.

Houthi leader Abdulmalik al- Houthi warned his group would target Israeli ships in the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandeb Strait. Less than a month later, the group started attacking all ships that it claimed were heading to Israel. In reality, it also targeted ships with tenuous or no links to the country at all.

The fourth Idea: America’s reaction towards Houthis:

With that, the US went from indirect involvement to a new bombing campaign in the Middle East. President Biden, outlining the justification for the strikes, said they intended to send “a clear message that the United States and our partners will not tolerate attacks on our personnel or allow hostile.

The United States and Britain began launching strikes against targets linked to the Houthis in Yemen, which is the first time that attacks have been carried out against the group allied with Iran since it began targeting Israel ships in the Red Sea, and the US Secretary of Defense said that the strikes in Yemen targeted the Houthi capabilities of aircraft, Drones, drone boats, coastal radars and aerial reconnaissance

A joint statement from America and its allies said that the strikes in Yemen were aimed at undermining the capabilities that the Houthis use to threaten global trade, the joint statement added: “Our goal remains to reduce tensions and restore stability in the Red Sea, The US also redesignated the Houthis as a terror group, after the Biden administration had taken the group off the list in one of the first acts after entering the White House.

Conclusion:

This article has some advantages and disadvantages, we can say some strong and weak points reviewed by the writer which are:

Strength points:

1-The writer highlighted the united states’ existence in the Middle East through its airstrikes in three countries, US sent billions of dollars in military hardware and providing tactical support for its closest ally in the region that help them in achieving their goals, the writer also demonstrated the US strong support for Israel especially after the Hamas attack in October and in this way US vision regarding the Palestinian issue becomes clear for all the parties.

2- The writer clarified a very specific point which is the presence of Armed groups in many regions of the middle east and his recognition that they represent a clear and strong threat to US, this was demonstrated by his emphasis on the extent to which global trade and global  shipping were affected through the strikes on American ships in the Red Sea by the Houthis supported by Iran, so the global trade dropped by 1.3 percent in December as a result of the disruption and the number of shipping containers fell by 60 per cent.

3- The writer’s clarification of the idea that the United States is doing something and its opposite at the same time, it doesn’t want a regional war because if it starts a war this indicates failure but it is doing everything that will lead to getting into this war.

4-The writer talked about the Biden’s administration and its strong and clear support for Israel and its intentions behind this support and showing the forms of the support for Israel in details whether financial or military.

Weaknesses points:

1-The writer didn’t mention the historical background to the relations between the United States and Israel and also the Armed forces especially the risks that these groups pose against US in details.

2-The lack to mention the reasons for the Houthi group committing all the crimes against US in details especially the strikes it commits against American and Israel ships in the Red Sea and what are the right reasons for committing these actions at this particular time.

3-The writer doesn’t adopt any forward- looking vision regarding American-Israel relations or what are the predictions and scenarios likely to occur in the coming period regarding what is happening inside Israel and the future of its relations with the United States and their common interests and also the vision about Biden’s administration about the regional war in the middle east and what are the consequences if this war occurs completely.

At the end, Biden’s strategy did not offer anything significant about the Middle East, it was generally a confirmation of what was stated in the national security strategies of previous administrations which deal with the Middle East as a fuel tank and strategic waterways, and nothing more.