Category Archives: IbishBlog

Iran-Israel conflict poses an existential risk for Lebanon, unless Biden can intervene

This op-ed was published by The National on April 16, 2024

Iran’s failed attack on Israel may have sealed Lebanon’s fate. Israel undoubtedly has come out the winner in the latest exchange, having killed several key commanders who are said to have played a role in directing Iran’s regional network of Arab militias to help Hamas fight Israel in Gaza and help Hezbollah prepare for a potential Israeli attack.

Israel suffered no fatalities, few injuries and very little damage in the Iranian barrage of over 300 projectiles aimed at military facilities. The US estimates about 140 of the drones and missiles failed due to malfunctions. US forces downed most of the remaining 160 projectiles, with the UK, France, Jordan and Israel’s own Iron Dome antimissile system also involved.

Iranian chest beating – and misleading news reports depicting fires from Chile and Texas as damage in Israel – aside, Iran seems to have been effectively thwarted.

Yet Iran does not appear to have intended to cause significant damage and fatalities in its attack, despite its size. Tehran telegraphed both the timing and the nature of the attack to Arab and European diplomats close to Washington well in advance. This explains warnings to Iran from US President Joe Biden, in his now-standard diplomatic catchphrase, “don’t”. Moreover, by using mainly slow, cheap drones, Iran actually may have pulled its punch. These missiles were fairly easily, and almost completely successfully, defeated.

Yet there can be little doubt that Iran could have done a great deal of damage, had that really been its intention. Not only do the Iranians have much greater capabilities than were on display in the attack on Israel, they also held back their biggest weapon, which is Hezbollah in Lebanon and its massive arsenal of over 150,000 missiles and rockets, many with precision guidance. Hezbollah’s stockpile is, if nothing else, capable of overwhelming the Iron Dome, and would have posed a huge challenge even to the US forces that did most of the important work.

So, what did Iran think it was doing? Clearly, Tehran believed that a direct strike on Israel in retaliation for the stinging assassination of its senior operatives in Syria was necessary. But it’s likely that domestic politics and political pressure from hardliners was the main factor, rather than a desire to escalate unduly with Israel. This is reflected in the failure of the Iranian attack, which is rather predictable given its structure and handling, and the obvious alternatives Iran could have used and still holds in reserve.

It appears Iran’s leaders wanted to score a “win” in the eyes of their people, while simultaneously giving Israel every opportunity to avoid feeling compelled to launch an additional new escalation. Indeed, Israeli leaders, too, can look at the score sheet and conclude that they have achieved a massive “win” over Iran. Neither side, rationally, has a real reason to push the confrontation further.

In addition, the Iranian attack was the antithesis for Israel of October 7. Rather than a shock which took the Israeli state and military completely by surprise and overwhelmed it, at least for a couple of days, this was telegraphed in advance and was easily dealt with by existing forces, even if they involved many other countries. Besides, most Israelis think their own military did the heavy lifting against the barrage. Instead of feeling violated, vulnerable, stateless and abandoned, Israelis can now feel a new sense of security, stability, predictability and that they are under the protection of a powerful and effective government that defends them and their interests against powerful foreign attacks.

The real question is, will Israel see this latest round with Iran as a sufficient “win”? Israeli leaders have been looking for such a victory since October 7, under the rubric of “restoring deterrence” but, really, in order to restore the national morale and sense of security and stability among a traumatized Israeli society. It was obvious from the outset to many, and has surely become clear to everyone by now, that such a “win” isn’t available in Gaza.

The great danger in recent months, not just to the region but to US policy as well, has been the prospect that Israeli leaders were seeking this restorative and cathartic “win” against Hezbollah in Lebanon. The group represents the most powerful immediate threat to Israel and is a much more conventional enemy than Hamas. Such a conflict would provide the Israelis with obvious targets, quantifiable metrics of success or failure, and no quagmire of having to occupy large chunks of Arab land indefinitely. They could simply pummel the group, damage and degrade its arsenal, kill some of its leaders and commanders and attack its infrastructure in relatively short order and then declare a victory that could be clear-cut in a way that no development in Gaza could.

The greatest problem with the Iranian attack on Israel is that it could well stoke, rather than mollify, the passion among some leading Israelis, like Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, for a war in Lebanon. Such hawks can point to the Iranian missile attack and claim that Hezbollah’s arsenal represents of much deadlier and intolerably dangerous version of the what Iran ineffectively flung in their direction.

The ball is now in Israel’s court. It could retaliate significantly against Iran, escalating prospects of a regional war. It could employed much more limited, or targeted, reprisals of a kind that has characterized its grey war with Tehran in recent years. Or it can decide to deliver Iran the biggest possible strategic blow by taking on, and, it would hope, taking out, Iran’s strategic trump card: Hezbollah.

If the Israelis decide the Iranian attack justifies an offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon, it will be up to Mr. Biden, who has successfully held them back from such a folly on numerous occasions since October 7, to once again successfully restrain them. This will not come naturally or easily to Mr. Biden, even though he has made his opposition crystal clear. Nonetheless, his powers of persuasion with Israel may face their ultimate test in the coming weeks. It may be up to the US President to stop Israel from committing the most dangerous and readily avoidable escalation in recent Middle East history by yet again invading Lebanon.

Biden will have to choose between his left-wing base and the Never Trumpers

This op-ed was published by The National on April 10, 2024

U.S. President Joe Biden finds himself squeezed between competing imperatives in the run-up to the November presidential election.

Neither he nor his presumptive Republican opponent, former president Donald Trump, have yet assembled a working coalition that can produce an electoral college majority, delivering either candidate a second presidential term. Mr. Biden is in a far more advantageous position, but he faces a potent conundrum about how best to expand his current base: moving to the right and embracing former Trump voters or tacking to the left and trying to shore up the liberal coalition that secured him victory in 2020.

Conventional wisdom would suggest that Mr. Biden has little to lose by making a concerted push to win over alienated Republicans. But such a move could be very risky.

Traditional assumptions hold that Mr. Biden’s former voters are unlikely to end up supporting Mr. Trump, whose racist, violent and extreme rhetoric is far more radical now than in 2020 or 2016. The overwhelming majority, the thinking goes, will eventually come back to Mr. Biden – even holding their noses – or, at the very least, will stay home.

But how many will really be won over by the current, highly radicalized, version of Mr. Trump currently on offer? Apparently more than most Democrats would have anticipated.

Current polling suggests that Mr. Trump is doing much better among Latinos and non-college-educated African Americans and other minorities, once bastions of the Democratic voter base and core parts of Mr. Biden’s 2020 coalition, than many liberals would’ve thought possible.

Democrats have long suffered from an evident and lazy complacency, with the assumption that Latinos would be impelled by a mixture of immigration and economics, and African Americans by resentment of Republican racism and their own class concerns, to always return to their fold.

Many Latinos are socially conservative, religious Catholics or other Christians, and are therefore responsive to the traditionalist and even reactionary Republican agenda, especially on abortion. Immigration does not trump everything else, and Latinos are by no means united in wanting the US to be more welcoming at the border. Indeed, many working-class Latinos are as resentful of recent migrants using the asylum system to try to bypass formal immigration processes as other Americans.

Non-college-educated African-American men have proved to be particularly receptive to Mr. Trump’s appeals in recent months. The extent to which they are aware of his new rhetoric about immigrants from Asia and Africa “poisoning the bloodstream” of the US population, or if they would care, is unclear. But his populist message, designed to appeal rhetorically to blue-collar constituents outside of the traditional unions, does seem to resonate with many young black men.

Both groups also appear to be receptive to his hyper-nationalism and isolationist rhetoric, wrongly assuming, along with many of their white rural counterparts, that international engagement and leadership are simply a burden on the American people and a boondoggle for wealthy corporations. Finally, both seem responsive to Mr. Trump’s persona as a strongman outsider who can supposedly cut through traditional power structures and impose better and fairer policies on a corrupt and parasitical elite.

So, Mr. Biden needs to be attentive to the drift of these groups away from his constituency, which in some cases could mean tacking to the populist left in order to counteract the populist right.

Moreover, the Gaza war has cast a huge shadow over Mr. Biden’s credibility with progressive left-wing groups, many of them African-American social justice and religious constituencies, who are deeply angered about the carte blanche given to Israel in attacking not just Hamas but the whole of Gazan society. On the US left, there is a conviction that Israel has engaged in an exterminationist, even genocidal, war in Gaza with the strong backing of the President and his administration, and that this has been shameful and morally unacceptable.

Mr. Biden needs to distance himself from this war, and therefore needs an end to major fighting in Gaza before campaigning gets fully under way by the early summer. But there is little sign that Israel views the timeline in a similar manner. Pushback from the progressive left is a key reason that the administration has been slowly ratcheting up pressure on Israel to ease the humanitarian crisis and prepare to end the war in the coming weeks.

But if Mr. Biden attends to these groups, it could be at the expense of the most significant “gettable” group of voters, in addition to the suburban constituencies in swing states that are likely to determine the outcome. While Mr. Biden has his Democratic critics, Mr. Trump goes into the election with a striking number of Republicans who clearly don’t want him as their nominee. Former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley consistently got between 20-40 per cent of primary votes, and there is ample additional evidence that more Republicans than ever are fed up with his extremism and shenanigans.

Mr. Biden has already attempted to reach out to these voters by embracing what amounts to a Republican agenda on border security in legislation that was killed by Republican House members, precisely to thwart such outreach. But there is much more he can and should do to make it clear to disaffected conservatives, especially those who once supported Mr. Trump but no longer can, that he represents an acceptable, even desirable, alternative.

Mr. Trump’s upcoming legal tribulations, especially the trial on hush money payments to an adult film star that is due to start next week, could well offer the President a devastating weapon. A felony conviction could provide a decisive opening to convince former Trump voters and other Republicans to at least stay home in November.

Mr. Biden wouldn’t have to tack very hard to the right to win over many of them, but he’s going to have to do more than he already has. The problem is that if he reaches out to disaffected parts of his 2020 coalition among minorities and on the left, he may lose the opportunity to steal or silence decisive numbers of Republican votes.

Mr. Biden’s conundrum is that he quite possibly cannot have both or simply rely on one group or the other coming back to him in November in despair. He’s probably going to have to choose between these outreach agendas. And, given what’s at stake in the 2024 election, that’s going to be a momentous strategic decision indeed.

A bit of good news for Trump is still dwarfed by his mounting legal woes

This op-ed was published by The National on March 28, 2024

The 2024 US presidential campaign, already among the strangest ever, has begun to truly unfurl its ineffable weirdness as Donald Trump is buffeted between sporadic campaigning and competing court decisions. Mr Biden remains the conventional candidate of a conventional party. Mr Trump and his Republicans, by contrast, are dispensing with virtually all political norms, expectations and traditions.

The Republican Party appears to have become a de jure as well as de facto Trump personal fiefdom. Desperate for money amid mounting fines, judgments and legal bills, he has installed his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, as co-chair of the Republican National Committee which controls party affairs and finances.

When she was initially proposed, RNC leaders insisted that everything would remain entirely aboveboard, and Party funds would only be used for Republican campaigns and not Trump family legal bills. However, Ms. Trump rushed to contradict them, insisting that Republican voters would be delighted to have their political donations used to bail out their adored chieftain.

Recent filings with the Federal Election Commission, which oversees political activities and spending, confirm that Mr Trump’s organisations like Save America and the Trump 47 Committee will have first dibs on future incoming RNC money through a “joint fundraising agreement”. Such groups allow themselves to pay any of Mr Trump’s personal expenses, including legal costs, so RNC fundraising now feeds directly into a virtual slush fund for the former president.

This reprehensible absurdity builds on the 2020 embarrassment of the Republican Party forgoing a normal election manifesto to simply declare that it supports whatever Mr. Trump wants at any given moment. The scandalous new arrangement means that normative RNC activities aimed at helping Republican candidates across the country get elected will only be funded after Mr. Trump skims off the cream for himself. Yet there’s a deafening silence and nary a word of complaint from Republican leaders and activists.

Key RNC staff in the political, data and all-important communication departments have been purged and prospective recruits quizzed on whether the 2020 election was “stolen,” meaning ideological commitment to Mr Trump’s most brazen lie is now, literally, part of their job descriptions. But this transformation of the GOP into a wholly-owned subsidiary of Mr Trump’s family business, the Trump Organisation, could well result in underfunded Republican candidates losing otherwise winnable seats in Congress in November. Republicans also appear to be repeating the 2022 midterms blunder, as Mr Trump’s preferred but probably unelectable nominees push aside more plausible candidates, as just happened in Ohio. A once near-certain Republican Senate takeover is increasingly doubtful because of his preference for the most unctuous sycophants over competent politicians.

This is all unfolding as the Trump campaign and RNC coffers are lagging far behind Democratic fundraising that has allowed Mr Biden to already begin running general election television advertisements.

Democrats scored yet another stunning upset, flipping a House seat in Alabama, of all places, with a massive 25-point victory in a county Mr Biden lost by 25 points in 2020, in a special election that became centred on reproductive freedom for women. That clearly remains a massive weapon for liberals even in the most unlikely districts and states.

Mr. Trump did get some good news on Monday as an appellate court predictably reduced the amount he must raise to back his appeal against the $454 million judgment against him for systematic business fraud to a “mere” $175 million. But they haven’t yet reduced the $454 million judgment. And New York State attorneys must be quietly delighted to be assured of getting at least $175 million without having to chase down his assets.

But this win-win was more than offset by another brutal day in the hush money criminal case. Mr Trump’s stalling tactics collapsed as Judge Juan M Merchan scheduled the trial for April 15. The judge became increasingly irate with Mr Trump’s attorneys as they failed to support their accusations of prosecutorial, and implicitly his own, misconduct. “You are literally accusing the Manhattan DA’s office and the people assigned to this case of prosecutorial misconduct and trying to make me complicit in it,” Judge Merchan thundered.

Even worse for Mr Trump, who angrily condemned the whole process in statements immediately involving the Monday hearing, the judge on Tuesday issued a gag order limiting what Mr Trump can publicly say as long as these proceedings continue. Prosecutors requested the order by alleging the former president’s remarks have been “threatening, inflammatory, denigrating” to those doing their civil duty rather than other public figures.

Mr Trump and his subordinates will not be allowed to make public comments regarding prospective witnesses, jurors, court staff and prosecutors, or their relatives. This follows the former president’s harsh public attacks on a key witness in the $454 million civil fraud case and previous statements that were widely viewed as attempts to intimidate potential witnesses or their relatives.

This ruling is a severe blow to Mr Trump’s plans to use the trial, which will not be televised, to promote the narrative that he and his supporters – including felons convicted of violent crimes during the January 6 insurrection – are being unjustly persecuted by Democrats and a fictitious “deep state”.

He will still be able to complain in broad terms about being treated “very unfairly” and insist that “such a thing has never happened” – because, he will not mention, no other former president has ever been accused of buying silence from alleged former paramours, including an adult film actress – and that it all constitutes intolerable “election interference.” This final point is absolutely correct. The trial is indeed about election interference – his.

The prosecution’s central assertion that the payoffs, which came long after the alleged affairs ended, were only made because Mr. Trump was running for president in 2016, and to protect his election chances, not his family’s feelings. Therefore, the surreptitious hush money payments constituted undisclosed and unlawful campaign contributions.

His former attorney and self-described “fixer” Michael Cohen, who will be a prosecution star witness in the upcoming trial, was sentenced in 2018 to three years in prison, largely on the basis of these payments that he allegedly (and obviously) made on Mr Trump’s behalf.

The election interference is that because of these unlawful payments, the public never learnt about allegations by the adult film actress, Stormy Daniels, and a former Playboy model, Karen McDougall, that both had extramarital affairs with Mr Trump.

It’s unclear if that information would have made any difference in 2026. But by 2024, a ruinous cult of personality has become so entrenched that many Republicans will allow him literally anything. That may not impress the swing voters who will decide the next election, especially if the Republican candidate becomes a convicted felon.

The April 15 trial will take about six weeks. A felony conviction should initiate an unprecedented political implosion, though that’s dishearteningly unlikely. Nonetheless, it could prove to be a dramatic election game-changer.

Biden’s fiery State of the Union has given him a decisive edge over Trump

This op-ed was published by The National on March 12, 2024

“Dark Brandon” the nickname coined by Joe Biden’s supporters to describe his formidable side was in full effect last week as the US President launched his re-election campaign in a barn-burning State of the Union address before Congress.

Republicans have been painting the 81-year-old President as a doddering octogenarian with pronounced dementia and rapidly decreasing, if any, ability to govern. Huge blunder.

This foolhardy caricature sat uneasily beside its even more grotesque fraternal twin in the right-wing echo chamber: Mr. Biden as the mastermind behind a global network of corruption, siphoning millions from as far afield as Ukraine and China into his family coffers.

Although absolutely no evidence supporting these apparent fantasies has been discovered despite intensive investigations by Republican House committees, American conservatives are constantly told that the President is simultaneously a near-vegetable and a modern Alexander the Great of multinational larceny.

Creeping senility was always the more potent and politically valuable charge. It taps into understandable concerns about Mr. Biden’s unprecedented age for an American president stoked widespread perceptions, while framing him as a criminal kingpin had little traction beyond committed right-wingers.

Even many Democrats shared doubts about his age and fitness, leading to widespread liberal nail-biting and cold sweats before the address, especially since Mr. Biden has been an ill-spoken, self-declared “gaff machine” for his entire half-century in politics.

Both sides, as so often, were badly misled by the same casual assumptions. Mr. Biden took to the lectern and gleefully demolished any thought that he is past it.

Dispensing with the usual thanks to House Speaker Mike Johnson, he immediately tore into Republicans over the military support for Ukraine that Mr Johnson is blocking. The President didn’t spell it out, but he didn’t have to: the only reason Kyiv is being abandoned is Mr Johnson’s refusal to allow a vote on military aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, which would easily pass.

Mr Biden also didn’t need to state bluntly that the Speaker is merely acquiescing to the longstanding anti-Ukraine and pro-Russia sympathies of former president Donald Trump. Throughout, Mr Johnson wore the expression of someone in extreme physical discomfort.

While Mr Biden’s speech was neither subtle nor especially artful, he deftly wove together numerous apparently disconnected strands into a coherent tapestry representing his essential re-election narrative.

By starting with an invocation of Franklin Roosevelt’s famous 1941 State of the Union speech when American democracy was simultaneously threatened by aggression abroad and subversion at home, he sought to paint Republicans in general, and Mr Trump in particular, as threats to personal and political freedoms and national security.

Mr Biden slurred some words and stumbled over a few passages that a younger and more eloquent politician would have nailed with ease. But he has always been a poor public speaker. He’s also showing his age, and battling the return of a significant stutter he overcame as a youth – which was nauseatingly mocked by Mr. Trump over the weekend.

But the President exhibited a fire and fighting spirit for which Democrats have been deeply yearning, and surely eliminated any thought of replacing him at the party convention this summer. Mr. Biden is evidently and understandably eager to debate “my predecessor”, whom he mentioned 13 times but never by name.

While Mr. Trump claims to be similarly enthusiastic, despite refusing to take part in any Republican primary debates, based on Mr. Biden’s performance he can probably be expected to find some excuse.

Mr. Biden wasn’t simply reading from a teleprompter. He did that, of course, but he also ad-libbed – considerably more than any previous president ever has in State of the Union addresses – and seemed to lay rhetorical traps for Republican heckling. These he met with largely effective, mocking rejoinders designed to trap Republicans into positions on key issues, such as the budget deficit, taxation and border security, about which they prefer to remain ambiguous.

The President’s folksy, faux-incredulous responses to Republican booing – “Oh, you don’t like that bill, huh? … that conservatives got together and said was a good bill? I’ll be darned” – illustrated that Mr. Biden was not merely quick-witted on the evening but also thoroughly enjoying himself.

He concluded by directly addressing his advanced age, saying that the real question is the age of one’s ideas, and thereby painting Mr. Trump and the Republicans as wanting to drag the country back into darker times, especially on abortion, contraception and reproductive rights.

He warned the assembled Supreme Court justices, quoting their recent ruling that eliminated the fifty-year-old constitutional right to an early-term abortion, that “you’re about to realize just how much you were right about” the “electoral or political power” of women.

Most Americans didn’t watch this prototype of his campaign stump speech. But the 32.2 million who did were reminded that Mr. Biden remains sharp and combative, despite the memory lapses he shares with the 77-year-old Mr. Trump, and that he’s an adept and polished politician who especially relishes the give-and-take in Congress.

When confronted by an irate Marjorie Taylor Greene – the Republican rabble-rouser from Georgia who was bedecked head to toe in garish red Trump/Maga paraphernalia – Mr. Biden reacted with evident and even indulgent amusement.

His decades of congressional experience help explain how Mr. Biden has been so successful, particularly on domestic legislation, in his first term. At last, he didn’t hesitate to blow his own trumpet.

While most Democrats were left ecstatic, some Republicans were reduced to complaining that “Jacked-Up Joe” was so energetic and forceful that he must have been given amphetamines, or at least that his speech was overly partisan and disturbingly confrontational.

The President’s efficacy was verified by their evident frustration, which was surely exacerbated by an overwrought official response from Alabama Senator Katie Britt who appeared to instantaneously oscillate between near-fits of histrionic laughter and distraught weeping. It was almost unanimously hailed as the worst-ever State of the Union rebuttal, comma and she’s been removed from most shortlists of potential Trump vice-presidential running mates.

The presidential campaign is barely under way, but the key themes are already clear. Mr. Biden has energized and delighted his base, and gone a long way towards dispelling doubts about his age and fitness.

Neither he nor Mr. Trump has yet solidified a winning 2024 coalition. But Mr. Biden has unquestionably increased his already robust re-election chances.

Biden and Trump are showing their age – but only one of them is in a legal mess

This op-ed was published by The National on March 6, 2024

As he and his predecessor, Donald Trump, effectively secured their parties’ nominations on Tuesday, US President Joe Biden continues to struggle in polls. And that’s despite persistent economic good news and Americans increasingly recognising that their economy is thriving. The most recent results among registered voters show Mr Biden trailing Mr Trump by five percentage points.

Although voters say that Mr Trump’s policies were better for them, it is likely that many have tuned out of politics since the mayhem of January 6, 2021, and have developed a predictable amnesia details of Mr Trump’s record, particularly in the first year of the pandemic. Few have probably registered yet how extreme and unstable Mr Trump appears to have become in the years since.

Undoubtedly, they’ll be reminded and informed of all that soon enough.

It’s far too early for Democrats to start the handwringing to which they seem uncommonly addicted. Still, Mr Biden must steadfastly claim credit for the remarkable US economic comeback and promote his new initiatives to tackle inflation, while also pressing forward with unilateral action on the border and continuing to publicly implore Republican lawmakers to take “yes” for an answer on immigration legislation. In the coming months, he would then have every opportunity to deny Mr Trump access to what should be his two most effective issues: inflation and immigration.

Nonetheless, in addition to recent polling, Republicans are feeling buoyed by two apparently encouraging rulings from the Supreme Court. Many Democrats conversely bemoan the decisions, yet again condemning the Court as hopelessly biased in favour of the former president who appointed three of the six-vote right-wing majority.

Despite this apparent bipartisan consensus, Mr Trump may not actually benefit from either case.

Last week, the Court declined to simply uphold a watertight ruling by the DC circuit appellate court denying Mr Trump’s novel claims of absolute presidential immunity from prosecution, including after leaving office.

The idea is patently absurd: how can the national chief magistrate, the one person sworn to “take care to see that the laws are faithfully executed”, simultaneously be the sole individual empowered to ignore all such laws with complete impunity and unaccountability? What would then compel the president to leave office at all, or abstain from committing crimes, or doing anything whatsoever that he or she finds convenient, useful or even amusing – no matter how outrageous or unlawful?

Many liberals hoped that the Supreme Court wouldn’t entertain such propositions and simply let the unassailable DC court ruling stand, not least because the outcome is inevitable. Many reacted with apoplexy when, instead, the Court announced that it would hear arguments in April, and rule by the end of its term on June 20. The typical Trump delaying tactic worked again, they cried.

Perhaps. But the Court has set itself a clear timetable. If it rules in late June that presidents may not break the law with permanent impunity, as it surely will, that should free Judge Tanya Chutkan and prosecutor Jack Smith to move expeditiously to put Mr Trump on trial for attempting to remain in power unlawfully by overturning a valid election and launching a failed coup against the US Constitution.

It’s not obvious why either would want to do Mr Trump any special favours by suspending legal processes simply because he’s running for re-election in a system for which he has evident contempt.

Unless Mr Trump comes up with some plausible new objections, the trial is unlikely to be delayed until after the election (and, if he wins, ordered abandoned). Instead, there seems to be every possibility that he will stand trial for election subversion in the weeks immediately before voting.

That’s unlikely to bolster his campaign or win many votes among the suburban and swing voters in the six or seven competitive “purple” states that will decide the outcome in November. The Court probably did indeed provide Mr Trump a delay, but not necessarily one that’s going to end up helping him get re-elected.

The second decision, on Monday, was – also probably incorrectly – again greeted on both sides as a big win for Mr Trump. The Supreme Court held that courts in Colorado misread the 14th amendment when they held that, as an insurrectionist, he is ineligible to regain federal office and should be removed from the state’s ballots. The unanimous, though strikingly inconsistent Court opinions weren’t just incompatible. They were often incomprehensible and unintelligible.

The conservative justices, as I predicted in these pages, made no effort whatsoever to uphold their supposed principles and tie their rulings to the amendment’s plain text or history. They merely identified their preferred outcome – a practice they abhor as intolerable when practised by liberals – and declared that only Congress, and not states, can enforce the amendment. There’s nothing whatsoever in the amendment’s language or the historical record supporting that conclusion.

Most glaringly, the two-paragraph concurrence from Judge Amy Coney Barrett appears self-contradictory and garbled, while openly admitting that the Court sought to avoid any politically “divisive” judgment. This is thinly veiled code for deliberately avoiding any ruling on the primary substantive factual finding of the Colorado district court and the Supreme Court: that Mr Trump is an insurrectionist, irrespective of whether the 14th amendment can be applied by states, or is self-executing, or anything else.

That’s hardly a great look or much of a win. Not only did the Supreme Court duck the key holding that Mr Trump is an insurrectionist, so did his own attorneys. No one challenged this adjudication, thereby leaving it standing unopposed.

Mr Trump will therefore enter the general election campaign as a legally adjudicated insurrectionist as well as having been found liable for sexual abuse and defamation of the writer E Jean Carroll. Another recently decided New York case establishes him as a legally adjudicated serial fraudster and tax cheat. Among 91 pending felony charges, he faces a looming trial involving hush-money payments to an adult actress.

Mr Biden is old and clearly showing his age. So is Mr Trump, who keeps confusing the current president with Barack Obama, among other glaring mistakes. But only one of the two elderly men with memory lapses is also a legally adjudicated wrongdoer in numerous disturbing cases, and may well be a convicted felon before the election.

Let that sink in. With the American public, it hasn’t yet. But it will.

Trump has consistently defeated Haley, but she has every reason to persist

This op-ed was published by The National on February 26, 2024

The Republican primaries appear to be already over. On Saturday, Donald Trump defeated Nikki Haley by about 20 points in South Carolina, where she had been a popular governor. Ms Haley has vowed to press on into Michigan and the primary bonanza on “Super Tuesday”, on March 5. But her practical chances of winning the nomination seemed done, and the billionaire Koch network has suspended its support.

On paper, her performance is underwhelming. She came in third in Iowa, lost in New Hampshire and now South Carolina, and in a Nevada primary that lacked Mr Trump’s participation “none of the above” beat her by more than 30 points.

Focus group research suggests that Mr. Trump’s voters are angry she’s challenging him and, increasingly, questioning his conduct. Many appear to equate criticism of him with disloyalty to the party and even country. Yet it’s precisely Ms. Haley’s rejection of this personality cult that gives her real significance for the country and party.

Republicans, she insists, “have the right to a real choice, not a Soviet-style election with only one candidate”. Except, they seem to want only one candidate, and are outraged when he’s seriously interrogated. Her mere presence problematises and complicates the widespread impulse to fall into lockstep.

Her policies don’t differ much from his, except on US international leadership and support for Ukraine. She agrees with President Joe Biden and most Democrats on the imperative of supporting Kyiv’s struggle against Russia’s war. That puts her at odds with the effectively pro-Russia policies of Mr Trump and, following his lead, many Republicans in Congress. This extends to Nato, which she strongly supports but he treats like a gangland protection racket rather than one of the most successful military and strategic alliances in history.

Her more forthright criticism of him has been late in coming, and didn’t begin in earnest until her chances of winning the nomination became scant. As long as she had plausible hope, she wasn’t prepared to alienate his followers. Principles, as ever, waited upon ambition.

So, her perseverance has increasingly become less about policies or even winning the nomination, and more about providing a political address for Republican voters highly uncomfortable with Mr Trump. She correctly observed that the 40 per cent of votes she received in South Carolina last Saturday isn’t “a tiny group”, and that “huge numbers” of Republicans don’t support the former president.

Her campaign is exposing and, to some extent even creating, serious divisions in a party that must be united and disciplined if Mr Trump is to dislodge Mr Biden in November. Mr Trump – who cannot abide being boldly challenged, particularly by a non-white woman – has been highly antagonistic to Ms Haley and vows to excommunicate her supporters. It’s not exactly a welcoming “big tent” appeal.

Yet her campaign indeed demonstrates that, to prevail in November, he must win over traditional and moderate conservatives, even if they cannot stop or slow his march towards the Republican nomination.

She’s clearly trying to position herself as the leader of a post-Trump Republican party if he goes down to defeat again in November. Apart from his victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016, as Ms. Haley frequently notes, Mr. Trump and his faction have had an unbroken losing streak at the polls, including in 2018, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023. It just happened again, in a special election in a normally Republican-held seat in Long Island formerly occupied by disgraced Republican congressman and conman George Santos.

Ms Haley is asking Republicans if they are finally “sick of all this winning”, as Mr Trump assured them they would become under his leadership. Without invoking Mr Trump’s alleged criminality, or his legally established responsibility for huge fraud and the sexual abuse and repeated defamation of writer E Jean Carroll, both in New York, she’s asking Republicans to recognise that no matter how much they may love the former president, he really isn’t likely to be an appealing candidate for the suburban and swing voters in a handful of competitive states that decide presidential elections.

Mr Trump has angrily vented his frustration with her, but she insists there’s “no need to kiss the ring” or fear his “retribution”. Still, many prominent Republicans are increasingly pressuring her to drop out and endorse him so Mr Trump can lead an apparently united party into its convention. Her point, though, is that there is a significant subset of Republicans that truly do not like Mr Trump and may or may not reconcile themselves to voting for him in the fall.

She’s positioning herself to take over should anything dramatic happen to Mr Trump before November or if he loses to Mr Biden, so it’s wise to offer herself as an alternative as loudly and long as possible. Since her very presence and perseverance provoke Mr Trump to lash out at her and her supporters as irrelevant, undeserving and non-Republican, he is consistently making her points.

When the primary is technically over, to protect her chances of future party leadership, she’ll likely offer him a pro forma endorsement. Her ambitions may not survive Mr Trump’s re-election. But the case she’s making now will echo resoundingly if he loses again in November.

Mr Trump’s legal woes are rapidly intensifying. Regarding his 91 criminal charges, his strategy appears to be delaying trials and securing re-election more than securing acquittals. He’s counting on the electorate as an ultimate de facto jury, and then claiming that everything has been adjudicated by his re-election which supersedes mere trials.

Yet he now owes New York over $454 million, plus $112,000 daily extra that’s accumulating in interest. He must pay another $83.3 million to the writer he sexually abused and repeatedly defamed. Securing enough cash to cover a bond for these debts will badly stretch his liquid finances (most of his wealth being tied up in real estate).

Meanwhile, Mr. Biden has $132 million already raised for the election, with Mr. Trump at just $36.6 million. He recently installed his daughter-in-law, Lara, as co-chair of the Republican National Committee, and she’s already insisting that voters want the party to divert campaign funds pay his legal bills. Ms. Haley might want to comment on that, repeatedly, before she’s through.

Ms. Haley has every reason to persist despite her consistent defeats, since she’s gambling that Mr. Trump won’t win in November. And Mr. Biden must be delighted that he’ll be facing Mr. Trump rather than her.

What Iran wants — and fears

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/13/opinions/how-about-iran-us-middle-east-wider-war-ibish/index.html

The crises wracking the Middle East are simultaneously independent flashpoints and also a relatively integrated regionwide offensive by Iranian-backed armed gangs.

It’s sometimes unclear how much control Iran has over these militias in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, Yemen and elsewhere.

Although Iran’s influence operates just beneath the earthquakes and tremors shaking the region, much like the Biden administration, Iran is serious about wanting to avoid a broader war.

Both are like Goldilocks, needing just enough but not too much. 

But there are key differences. The United States is a status quo power — upholding security and stability is its regional brand. The 2003 invasion of Iraq devastated US credibility partly because it was such an irrational deviation from a traditional commitment to order. 

Iran, conversely, is a quintessential revisionist actor, opposing the regional and global balance of power.

The United States and Saudi Arabia, also a regional status quo power, are strongly drawn together, while Iran consistently partners with other revisionist powers such as Russia and China.

This puts Washington at a tactical disadvantage since its partners have to behave with relative caution or put US interests at risk — as with the Saudi-led Arab intervention in Yemen that began in 2015 and Israel’s ongoing war of vengeance in Gaza. 

That’s why the Biden administration is trying to quietly contain and restrain Israel in Gaza and prevent it from acting on its threats against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Conversely, Iran typically isn’t threatened when its clients sow chaos. For Iran, even the Hamas-led killing spree on October 7 has been useful by bleeding Israel in a battle against its on-again, off-again Hamas allies.

Yet Iran must be careful about what its proxies do. When one of Iran’s collection of Iraqi Shiite militias, Kataib Hezbollah, earlier this year launched a drone attack on a US logistics center in Jordan, killing three US soldiers, it had gone too far. Iranian leaders rushed to insist they don’t want a broader war, especially with the United States. Kataib Hezbollah announced that it was suspending all military operations while complaining Iran ”does not know the nature of our jihad,” meaning it was standing down on Iranian orders.

Iran has backed Hezbollah’s efforts to avoid an all-out war with Israel despite consistent Israeli escalation and threats. When Israel assassinated a key Hamas leader, Saleh Al-Arouri, this year with a drone strike in Hezbollah’s primary area of Beirut, Hezbollah responded with a largely symbolic rocket attack on an Israeli radar station that caused no injuries and little damage.

Israel responded by assassinating the deputy commander of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force, Wissam Tawil, which has essentially gone unavenged, though intense skirmishing near the border persists.

Israel is now demanding Hezbollah remove its forces 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) from the border or face an all-out attack, with some 80,000 Israelis and 70,000 Lebanese evacuated on either side. Hezbollah refuses, and Washington’s negotiator, Amos Hochstein, has proposed a 7-kilometer (4.3-mile) Hezbollah pullback. Hezbollah doesn’t want a war with Israel and Iran agrees.

Tehran is loath to waste a trump card — Hezbollah’s 150,000, often precision-guided, missile and rocket arsenal on Gaza or Hamas. Hezbollah, arguably the most powerful nonstate military in history, is meant to deter Israeli or American attacks against Iran, especially its nuclear facilities.

The potential for such US or Israeli airstrikes is among the most significant reasons Iran wants to avoid a broader conflict. As global attention is focused on the immediate crises spawned by the October 7 attack, Tehran has been making stealthy but significant progress toward nuclear weapons power status by enriching ever-more near-weapons grade uranium. 

The last thing Iran needs is anything that could reverse this progress and threaten other core national interests.

The wild card for Iran is the Yemeni Houthi militants and their Red Sea piracy. This piracy has reiterated and emphasized two long-standing Iranian diplomatic points: that Iran and its “axis of resistance” network must be included in any de facto maritime security arrangement, and that if Iran cannot freely ship its oil due to sanctions, no one can be assured of unmolested maritime commerce either.

Since three of the eight major global maritime chokepoints — the Suez Canal, Strait of Hormuz and Bab Al-Mandab Strait — encircle the Arabian Peninsula and are vulnerable to attacks from Iran and the “axis,” this global economic vulnerability provides Iran compelling international leverage.

Yet the Houthis may well prove the most troublesome “axis” member for Iran. Like Hamas, but unlike almost all other axis groups, neither are creations of Iran but clients. Both have shown a capability and willingness to act alone, as Hamas almost certainly did on October 7. 

So, Iran has a great deal at stake in a set of conflicts that have to be carefully contained and controlled if it is going to avoid paying a significant, and possibly huge, price.

Tehran has already restrained its Iraqi proxies, and is working to help Hezbollah climb down and avoid a devastating Israeli attack. They may even both, either formally or informally, accept the American proposal for a more modest pullback from the border with Israel. And Iran is probably urging the Houthis to take great care not to kill Americans or otherwise go too far.

It’s not just Washington that must play a careful balancing game in the Middle East morass. Despite Iran’s hostility to the status quo and gains from the current conflict at virtually no cost to itself, it clearly recognizes intensifying significant potential risks. 

Tehran surely realizes it must get better control of its Arab proxies or they could end up dragging it into a conflict that’s disastrous for Iranian national interests — and possibly even the future of the regime.

Both US parties have been hit hard by recent setbacks

This op-ed was published by The National on February 12, 2024

Last week was dreadful for both parties in Washington. Republicans suffered their worst meltdown yet in Congress, this time including the Senate as well as the House of Representatives, underscoring the extent to which the party has become so deeply ideological and extreme it cannot govern or even take “yes” for an answer.

The de facto Republican leader, former president Donald Trump, appears poised for a victory from the Supreme Court probably allowing him to remain on all ballots despite a Colorado Supreme Court ruling citing the constitutional ban on insurrectionists returning to public office.

But he suffered a far more serious defeat when an appellate court held, contrary to his claims, that presidents don’t have permanent immunity for crimes they committed while in office. For Democrats, fresh concerns emerged over President Joe Biden’s age, even as he was cleared of criminal wrongdoing in his own classified documents investigation.

Almost no one was left unscathed.

Republicans’ congressional clown-car crash antics sunk to an astounding nadir. They had been bemoaning the crisis at the US-Mexico border due to unprecedented unauthorised crossings and the immigration system in near-total collapse, and angrily demanding highly restrictive measures to stem the flow of unauthorised crossings which they were sure Democrats could never accept.

Democrats have sought to pair border security with pathways to citizenship, especially those brought to the country as undocumented young children and who have lived exemplary lives. But immigration is Mr. Trump’s key election weapon, so Mr. Biden persuaded most Democrats to move dramatically to the center on border security in order to blunt Republican attacks.

Democrats therefore supported legislation with harsh restrictions and enhanced presidential powers to restrict entry and automatically remove would-be migrants and asylum seekers, without any new citizenship pathway. This far-reaching Republican immigration wishlist was instead paired with military aid for Israel and Ukraine.

Ukraine aid is especially crucial because of adamant opposition of many Trump supporters in Congress who are unsympathetic to Kyiv. Democrats considered military support for Ukraine so vital, and the immigration issue so dangerous, they voted for legislation filled with provisions they would normally flatly reject.

Yet being presented with most of what they were aggressively demanding on a supposedly existential crisis, Republicans suddenly said “absolutely not”. Mr. Trump aggressively insisted that immigration mustn’t be seriously addressed under Mr. Biden, because it would be “a gift” to the Democrats who, he claimed, “don’t care about the issue” but “need it politically”.

The raw electioneering, not to mention psychological projection, was neither subtle nor disguised.

House Republicans naturally hopped to attention and rejected the very measures they had been furiously demanding when they were sure Democrats would oppose them. But, crucially, so did many Senate Republicans, including some of the legislation’s key architects.

Mr Trump’s domination is now essentially total. Senate holdouts caved while looking ridiculous by denouncing legislation they had been demanding as imperative and indispensable and claiming this “existential crisis” is best addressed by the election more than 10 months away. They managed to stumble backwards into the trap they laid for their adversaries.

Worse, their effort to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas collapsed when Representative Mike Gallagher said he wouldn’t support impeaching a senior official over policy disagreements rather than, as the Constitution dictates, “high crimes and misdemeanors”. None were alleged, though Republicans disdain his performance. Another vote is scheduled for next week, and, if past is prologue, the holdouts may well cave and agree to the first US impeachment over policy differences alone.

With Republicans strongly reinforcing the impression they are incapable of anything meaningful, or even taking “yes” for an answer from themselves, Mr Biden suffered his own significant political hit. The special counsel in his classified documents case, a Republican, announced no criminal charges could be sustained, but claimed that in depositions Mr Biden presented himself as “a well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory”.

These strikingly inappropriate claims in any prosecutorial document, especially one announcing no charges, will certainly reinforce the sense among many Americans that Mr Biden may be too old and deteriorated for a second presidential term.

The subsequent uproar underscores that Mr Biden’s age and perceived deteriorating mental competence are, perhaps, his greatest liabilities. Luckily for him, Mr Trump suffers from many similar lapses in public and is only three years younger. Yet it’s going to be essential for Mr Biden, if he remains committed to re-election, take significant steps to offset this impression.

He should release much more detailed health information, and engage more with the press and public in sustained impromptu exchanges. Those who have had extensive and substantive private interactions with him insist that he is well-informed, insightful and clear-headed. It’s essential to show that to a public that has serious doubts.

If he can’t do that, then he should urgently step aside for one of several young Democratic governors who would make very formidable candidates against a seemingly increasingly unhinged Mr Trump. Either way, the burden is now squarely on Mr Biden.

Mr Trump had a mixed week in the courtrooms that appear to be his latest primary residence. He seems likely to appear on all state ballots but, more importantly, also to face one of his most serious criminal trials before the election. His cynical and toxic claim of “absolute immunity” was demolished by a brilliant Washington DC appellate court ruling that appears carefully constructed to give the Supreme Court no plausible basis to overturn it.

Moreover, it would require an unlikely five Supreme Court justices to issue a stay preventing Washington federal Judge Tanya Chutkan from rapidly moving forward with Mr Trump’s trial, now scheduled for March, on his attempts to reverse the 2020 election. If that trial indeed takes place any time before October, Mr Trump could easily become the first major presidential candidate to run as a convicted felon, which will probably prove devastating to his chances. A conviction before the election is also possible in other cases.

Americans have many legitimate doubts about Democrats, but at least they vote for their own legislation. They have doubts about Mr Biden’s age and cognition, but he certainly won’t be convicted of major felonies, found liable for massive fraud and sexual abuse, or facing 91 felony charges. Besides, Mr Trump isn’t exactly an eloquently lucid spring chicken. Despite their growing anxieties, very few Democrats would trade places with Republicans going forward into this crucial election year.

Going after UNRWA is a charade the world must reject

This op-ed was published by The National on February 5, 2024

Ten days ago, Israel began circulating accusations that 12 employees of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Gaza had involvement in the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7. This led to a crisis of indispensable, largely western, funding for this crucial humanitarian services provider for Palestinian refugees, especially in Gaza, where a large majority are refugees from what has become southern Israel.

But this latest campaign is just part of a decades-long attack on the agency by Israel, which is itself just a subset of the broader campaign to eliminate the Palestinian refugee issue by eliminating Palestinian refugees as an internationally monitored and protected group.

On January 18, UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini attended his monthly meeting with Israeli officials. He was presented with allegations that 12 of the 13,000 Palestinian employees of UNRWA in Gaza were directly linked to the October 7 attacks. The UN itself publicly revealed the claims by announcing that it had dismissed nine of the 12 accused employees (two were dead).

The news provoked a cascade of demands for UNRWA’s dissolution and defunding, particularly since it broke on the same day that the International Court of Justice issued a favorable initial finding for South Africa’s genocide case against Israel.

Israel added, without evidence, that 10 per cent of UNRWA’s Gaza workforce is linked to Hamas. That was likely intended to offset the obvious observation that if UNRWA could keep Hamas supporters or even members to a mere 12 out of 13,000 staffers in Gaza, that’s an outstanding performance. UNRWA is not a government and it has no investigative or intelligence wing that would allow it to carefully vet thousands of workers – and it routinely shares its employment rolls with Israel.

But the useful immediate distraction is part of a larger and longer campaign that is even more insidious than it initially appears. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tried to paint Israeli anger as partly motivated by UNRWA-related testimony regarding Israeli abuses in Gaza cited in South Africa’s ICJ case. But even that is a relatively minor detail in Israel’s animus against UNRWA.

The real offence by the organization, for which Israel has labored mightily for decades to discredit and eliminate it, is that its very existence reflects the persistence of the Palestinian refugee problem and issue. This simultaneously points both backward to the past, to the origin of Israel’s founding, as well as forward to the future and to the need to resolve the refugee question as a key part of any agreed-upon final status arrangement. Both are utterly unacceptable to not merely the Israeli political far-right, but deeply threatening to most Jewish Israelis.

Israel never tires of complaining that UNRWA is a unique refugee agency, dedicated to one particular people, as if that were somehow unfair to Israel. But, crucially, this is because when the agency was founded in 1949, the same year as the armistice agreements that formed Israel’s de facto international borders, and Israel’s membership in the UN General Assembly, the international community was well aware that for the first and only time, it played a direct role in creating a major refugee crisis that otherwise probably would never have existed.

The UN’s predecessor organization, the League of Nations, after the First World War issued a self-contradictory mandate to Britain over Palestine. As with all the other mandates, Britain was instructed to prepare the (almost entirely Arab) population for self-government and independence without altering the local society, and simultaneously repeated verbatim Britain’s commitment to transform that society into a Jewish “homeland” as expressed in the earlier Balfour Declaration.

After the Second World War, the new UN itself had voted to partition Palestine between its overwhelming Arab majority and the Jewish settlers who were still less than 30 per cent of the population but were to receive 56 per cent of the territory.

In the subsequent war, between 1947-49, about 700,000-800,000 Palestinians, or 80 per cent of the Arabs in what became Israel, were displaced and forbidden to return. Thus, almost overnight, an Arab society vanished and was indeed replaced by a Jewish one. The creation of UNRWA was a clear recognition of the international community’s direct hand in this tragedy of the dispossession and displacement of one people to make way for another.

Many Israelis would regard all of that as the Palestinian national narrative at best, and Arab propaganda at worst. But not only is it true, but it is the truth as the rest of the world understood it at the time. Yet this history of dispossession as the indispensable foundational necessity for Israel is the subject of intense and systematic repression at home and suppression abroad. The mere existence of UNRWA threatens both.

In the present day, it isn’t merely that seeking to deny UNRWA’s relief services to the Palestinians in Gaza is part of Israel’s war of vengeance, though the agency could shut down by the end of February if funding isn’t restored. Israel has long viewed the refugee issue and the “right of return” as a potent bargaining chip, one that is on par, and often paired with, Jerusalem, and a powerful form of Palestinian leverage in negotiations and international public diplomacy.

UNRWA’s work requires it to carefully tally Palestinian refugees, providing accurate numbers and crucial legal status. Israel therefore sees the existence and work of UNRWA as the decisive obstacle to redefining the Palestinian refugees out of existence, and maintains that only those who themselves were physically displaced nearly 80 years ago deserve that status. Hence the astonishing spectacle that the country that created and refuses to resolve one of the world’s great refugee crises blames the agency that cares for those refugees, because they are and remain refugees.

It’s so simple: no refugees, no issue.

The cynical and cruel campaign against UNRWA operates at nearly every level of Israel’s relentless conflict with the Palestinians: as part of the collective war in Gaza; key to suppressing historical realities and memories dangerous to Israel’s self-serving national mythology (and, conversely, central to Palestinian mythologies); and crucial to eliminating a potent source of Palestinian leverage at the bargaining table and on the global stage.

The international community needs to see this charade for what it is and, while demanding reasonable reforms and accountability, redouble the commitment to the humanitarian services that UNRWA provides, what it stands for, and the role it must continue to play unless and until the displacement and dispossession of the 1940s is, at last, redressed.

Is America’s Tower 22 in Jordan ‘ground zero’ for a new battlefront in the Middle East?

 

This op-ed was published by The National on January 29, 2024

The stakes have once again risen for US President Joe Biden’s high-wire balancing act in the Middle East, as three US military personnel were killed and dozens wounded by a drone attack in Jordan that the White House has blamed on Iranian-backed radical groups.

The killings have transformed the third flashpoint in the region, repeated attacks on US troops and facilities in the Middle East, from the least to the most alarming minefield. It now outstrips – at least, for Americans – daily violence on the Israel-Lebanon border and Houthi piracy in the Red Sea. Responding to the attack with firmness, yet also without intensifying a drift towards regional conflict, will be the most challenging spill-over yet of the October 7 crisis for the Biden administration.

The devastating strike hit Tower 22, a US logistics support base, and some claim signals intelligence facility, in a remote part of north-eastern Jordan near the Syrian border. Several Iranian-backed groups operate in the area, both in Syria and Iraq. Their fighters have reportedly been evacuating their bases in expectation of a significant US retaliation. That is extremely likely, although Washington is going to have to carefully weigh how to balance going far enough to restore deterrence but not too far for its own purposes.

The Biden administration’s key goal since the Hamas-Israel war began has been to prevent the conflict from spreading dramatically beyond Gaza. After a tense first month, the policy had appeared to be succeeding, and Washington began turning more attention to restraining Israel inside Gaza itself and preparing for a “day-after” scenario there.

However, in recent weeks, tensions rose dangerously in the Red Sea and on the Lebanon-Israel border. The US has already been drawn into a limited but serious conflict with the Houthis, after the radical Yemeni group began attacking commercial shipping in the Red Sea. And Israel persists in demanding submission to its ultimatum that Hezbollah withdraw its elite Radwan Force fighters from the south, as far north as the Litani River – a demand Hezbollah has dismissed as totally unreasonable.

Amid these growing threats of escalation, however, the Biden administration had reason to hope that its policy of conflict containment remained viable and even relatively successful. The battle against Houthi piracy could drag on at a low-level for months or even years without degenerating into all-out warfare, as the battle against Somali pirates did between 2000-2017. And both Israel on the one hand and, especially, Hezbollah and Iran on the other have every reason to want to avoid another major war with each other at this stage – which is probably why one has not broken out over the past four months.

Attention had been mainly focused on those two crises, almost to the exclusion of handwringing over an ongoing, and almost daily, set of attacks against US forces and facilities in Syria and Iraq by less potent members of Tehran’s “axis of resistance” network of militia groups. Saturday’s deadly strike against Tower 22 serves as a stark reminder that this third flashpoint always remained potentially the most dangerous for the US, because these attacks were aimed directly at the US presence in the region and at Americans.

Until now, US anti-rocket and missile defences, which were beefed up before Israel’s major offensive into the Gaza Strip, managed to successfully intercept and thwart these attacks. The Pentagon is unlikely to have underestimated the potential for a deadly outcome, but the civilian administration in Washington may have been lulled into a false sense of security and was certainly hit by extremely bad luck as well as a vicious attack on Saturday. It’s also entirely possible that the militia groups responsible are taken aback by their own “good luck”, and the extent of death and destruction they were able to visit upon US forces.

It may have gone too far, as well, for their Iranian backers, who will be in a key position now to help to determine whether any or all of these three smoldering fuses detonate a regional explosion that could engulf all major parties. That certainly won’t suit Tehran’s interests, especially under current circumstances, as Iran is quietly inching towards irreversible nuclear status while the world’s attention is focused on many other Middle Eastern priorities.

Iran has clearly been doing nothing to prompt Hezbollah into a larger conflict with Israel that could cascade eventually into a confrontation between Tehran and Washington, conceivably even producing the US military strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities that Israel has long sought but never achieved. This might help to explain the enthusiasm of some Israeli leaders for a “pre-emptive” attack against Hezbollah, and their appetite for a growing list of totally unconvincing pretexts for new levels of bellicosity.

By contrast, Iran has almost certainly relished Houthi piracy in the Red Sea, as it repeats long-standing Iranian messages about the right of Tehran and its regional allies to be included in any de-facto maritime security arrangements and that if Iran cannot freely export its oil due to sanctions, no one else can be assured of buying and selling anything unmolested either. But, with a series of US and UK military strikes inside Yemen, Tehran may begin acting as a restraining force on the Houthis as well, because, having made their point, the last thing Iran needs is for Yemeni militants to drag the region into uncontrolled conflict.

Iran will also have to be cognisant that Republicans in Congress and the party’s likely presidential nominee, former president Donald Trump, will loudly blame the Biden administration for the growing crisis and attacks on Americans, pressuring Mr Biden into tougher responses. The attack in Jordan also brings Iran and its network into direct conflict with yet another US partner in the Middle East.

So, restraint is not going to only be up to the US. Iran must move quickly to get a grip on its regional network of armed gangs, or, eventually, face the wrath of the most potent possible enemy with powerful regional partners. If it’s still the case that none of the main actors want a broader regional war that would be devastating to them all, then careful deliberation and relative forbearance becomes a shared responsibility. Otherwise, one, two, or even all three of these smoldering fuses will sooner or later explode with devastating consequences.