The Biden administration entered office in January 2021 hoping to keep the Middle East off its agenda of priorities. The Russian invasion of Ukraine forced it to reconsider the Middle East as a key energy and great-power-competition partner. The Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October and the large-scale Israeli response that ensued returned the Middle East back to the very top of the US foreign policy agenda, alongside Ukraine and tensions in the South China Sea. Since then, the US has been dragged into armed conflict in the region, struggled to square its robust support for Israel with its concern for civilian casualties and humanitarian aid and struggled to contain the spread of the conflict into other parts of the Middle East. The conflict also leap-frogged into domestic US politics with a vocal opposition within the democratic party, jeopardizing President Joe Biden’s reelection prospects. As of this writing, the US’ record of dealing with the crisis is decidedly mixed and the path forward – both for Israel-Palestine relations and for US relations in the wider Middle East – is unclear.

The Calm before the Storm

The Biden administration entered office with a primary focus on domestic affairs, with the country still in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic and reeling from the violent challenge to the peaceful transfer of presidential power represented by the storming of the US capitol on 6 January. The remaining scope given to foreign policy was focused on reviving US leadership in global climate pacts and negotiations, rebuilding relations with allies in Europe and Asia and focusing on the multi-layer challenge posed by China.

The Middle East was a low priority. The Biden administration wanted to revive the nuclear agreement that the previous Democratic administration under Obama had negotiated, and that President Donald Trump had pulled out of; it was supportive of the Abraham Accords negotiated under Trump, but was not enthusiastic about prioritizing that Trump-era path; and Biden had called Saudi Arabia a pariah state and assessed that America’s overall energy independence would enable him to retain that distance.

The administration’s first major geopolitical move was the full and botched withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, marking a low point in US prestige and causing shock waves in the region and internationally. Talks with Iran to revive the 2015 nuclear deal proceeded but to no avail. The Abraham Accords endured and the Israeli-Palestinian front appeared calm, but with no major attention from the administration.

The first uptick in re-engagement with the region came after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The invasion sparked an energy crisis for America’s allies in Europe and also dramatically raised gas prices at the pump in the US; also, the invasion escalated what was previously described as “great power competition” to outright great power conflict. The US needed to re-engage with Saudi Arabia and other Middle East energy producers to help secure European needs and to drive down energy prices at home; and the US needed to surge back into the Middle East to head off great power challenges from China and Russia. President Biden travelled to the region in July 2022 just five months after the Russian invasion, visiting Israel and Saudi Arabia, and for the ensuing year, US officials maintained a steady schedule of visits and engagement in the region.

While lip service continued to be paid to the need for a two-state solution in Israel and Palestine, the US administration correctly assessed that there was no realistic prospect for that in prevailing conditions, and shared with Israel the assessment that while Hamas was a troublesome player, they believed it prioritized its control of Gaza and would not pose a major threat to Israel beyond occasional performative exchanges of missile fire. Indeed US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan published an article in the October 2023 issue of Foreign Affairs – which he later hastened to edit – in which he stated that “the region is quieter than it has been for decades.”

Piercing the Paradigm

Just as Egypt had caught Israeli and US intelligence by surprise in October 1973, Hamas also caught both powers by surprise exactly fifty years later. The Hamas attack ran counter to the trend of de-escalation that seemed to be taking hold in the region; indeed, the Hamas attack appeared to be at least partly in response to one aspect of that de-escalation: the slew of Abraham Accords that Hamas charged was eliminating the Palestinian cause as a central issue in Middle East politics and was integrating Israel into the wider Middle East. Whether Iran knew of the details of the attack beforehand or not is still not clear, but Iran also favoured a halt to Israel’s normalization within the region, especially as Saudi Arabia was next in line. The Hamas attack went well beyond military targets, directly targeting civilians, and leading to the killing of more than 1,100 Israeli civilians and military personnel, and the kidnapping of about 250 others. It was the biggest loss of Jewish life since the holocaust; in the US, it brought back memories of 9/11. President Biden led the US response.

The Evolution of the US Response

President Biden delivered an immediate message, on the day of the attack, pledging America’s “rock solid” support for Israel’s security and warning other parties against entering the war. The US backed up this position by sending two aircraft carrier battle groups to the Middle East and ramping up military cooperation and intelligence sharing with Israel. On 10 October, after a call with Prime Minister Netanyahu he gave further support stating that “if the United States experienced what Israel is experiencing, our response would be swift, decisive and overwhelming.” He followed this up with a visit to Israel on 12 October, the first by a US president to Israel in wartime, which included an embrace between Biden and Netanyahu, leaders who previously had been at political odds.

As the conflict unfolded it became clear
that the US had several goals in its approach
to the conflict, and that its positions were
beginning to veer markedly from the Israeli position

Biden insiders argued that the US President’s strong embrace of Israel was partly a genuine response from Biden who has long supported Israel and often described himself as a Zionist, and a reading of the Hamas attack through the lens of the war against terrorist organizations that the US had waged in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and elsewhere. Also, they argued, Biden was trying to gain political capital with the Israeli government and public that he could use later to shape Israel’s response to the attack. In the latter assumption, if indeed it was a conscious one, Biden would be mistaken.

The Israeli response was indeed swift and overwhelming, as Biden had foreshadowed it – although it did not prove as decisive as Israel had hoped for. Nine months since the start of the conflict, over 40,000 Palestinians have been killed, most of Gaza destroyed, much of Hamas’s fighting capacity and tunnel network destroyed, but Hamas survives, still holds hostages and launches sporadic attacks, and is still the party with whom Israel and the US are negotiating – albeit through intermediaries.

As the conflict unfolded it became clear that the US had several goals in its approach to the conflict, and that its positions were beginning to veer markedly from the Israeli position. First, while both shared the goal of defeating Hamas and destroying its military capacities – which continued to be the core point of military cooperation between the two states – they differed on other aspects. As early as 16 October, Biden warned Israel against establishing a permanent Israeli presence in Gaza, saying it would be a “big mistake.” On 3 November, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken called for a humanitarian pause in the fighting to allow more aid into Gaza, and to enable the release of Israeli captives. On 8 November, senior State Department official Barbara Leaf said that the Palestinian Authority should govern post-war Gaza. On 12 December, Biden warned Israel that its “indiscriminate bombing” of Gaza was starting to eat away at Washington’s support for the country. None of these positions were shared by the Netanyahu government.

But the US remained supportive of Israel’s core war aim of destroying Hamas, vetoed repeated UN resolutions calling for a ceasefire and maintained an intense channel of arms delivery, which included tank and artillery ammunition, bombs, rockets and small arms. Biden proposed a large military aid package to Israel, which was finally passed by Congress in April and included $14.3 billion in emergency security assistance. The only hiccup in the military support was a decision by the Biden administration in May to pause the delivery of heavy 2,000-pound bombs; this was linked to US warnings to Israel that surfaced in February not to launch an attack on Rafah without an effective plan to protect civilians.

The layered US approach to the conflict was laid out by Secretary Blinken at the G7 in Tokyo in November 2023, and reiterated by White House Middle East director Brett McGurk at the Manama Dialogue that same month. The principles of that policy include the following:

 Five no’s:

• No forcible displacement of Palestinians from Gaza.
• No reoccupation of Gaza.
• No reduction of the territory of Gaza.
• No threats to Israel from Gaza.
• No siege of Gaza.

Followed by five more affirmative principles:

• The Palestinians must be at the centre of post-war governance in Gaza.
• The West Bank and Gaza must return to unified governance, ultimately under a revitalized Palestinian Authority.
• Israel must be secure, and there can be no threats to Israel from Gaza or the West Bank.
• Resources must be provided for post-crisis Gaza as well as interim security resources.
• A reconstruction mechanism must be established to secure the long-term needs of Gazans.

These ten principles were presented by the Biden administration as part of a long-term pathway toward a two-state solution.

Although there are new voices among
the democratic party base in the US
that oppose America’s blanket support
of Israel, those voices remain a minority

The divergence between these principles and the position of the Israeli government are stark. In statements and actions, as well as in the “Day After Hamas” plan presented by PM Netanyahu to his government on 23 February the differences are clear.

• The plan calls for an Israeli-controlled “buffer zone” on the Palestinian side of Gaza for as long as necessary.
• Ongoing freedom of action for the IDF in Gaza for an indeterminate “intermediate term.”
• Civil affairs will be run by “local officials” with “administrative experience,” presumably under Israeli oversight, and there is no mention of the PA. In other statements, Netanyahu has ruled out a return of the PA.
• While a siege is not mentioned, Israel secured its control of Gaza’s borders by taking over the Philadelphi Corridor, and has limited humanitarian aid into Gaza and effectively maintained at least a partial state of siege on the population, which has led to near famine conditions.
• And while it is not stated government policy, several extremist members of the Israeli cabinet have made no secret about their desire to see a displacement of Palestinians out of Gaza and a resettlement of the territory by Israeli settlers.
• And on the overall goal of working toward and eventually reaching a two-state solution, Netanyahu and his government have been very clear that they do not share that objective.

In this tug of war between Netanyahu and Biden over Gaza policy, Netanyahu has effectively maintained the upper hand. Although there are new voices among the democratic party base in the US – among the young and the left – that oppose America’s blanket support of Israel, those voices remain a minority both in the party and the country, and a very small minority in Congress. Netanyahu is a long-time expert in US politics and knows that Biden cannot back up his reproval with any meaningful political or military-related pressure. On the contrary, leaders of both parties invited Netanyahu to address a joint session of congress, over the implicit objections of the administration.

While the young voices in the democratic party signal a potential major policy shift, that will only happen as that generation rises to power over the next ten to twenty years, but still does not fundamentally change the party’s strong support for Israel. Meanwhile, the Republican Party has taken advantage of Democratic Party dissent to brand the latter as anti-Israel and has spurred Republican leaders to become more strongly pro-Israeli to differentiate themselves in an election year. The leader of the Republican Party Donald Trump said that if elected president he would urge Israel to “finish the job,” and when asked about a two-state solution said that he had no such commitment.

In the past nine months, America’s Israeli ally has not been able to achieve the total defeat of Hamas that it and the US want. America’s attempts to temper Israel’s actions in Gaza, reduce civilian casualties, provide sufficient humanitarian aid, prevent a siege and steer the conflict toward a post-Gaza situation in which the PA would play a central role and a longer-term path toward a two-state solution, have all largely been stymied. Although there are signs, to be discussed below, that the outlines of an end to the war might be emerging.

Containing the Spread

From Biden’s first statement about the war, he warned other parties not to enter the conflict and sent military forces to deter such parties and to prevent the spread of the conflict into other arenas in the region. The warning, of course, was directed mainly at Iran and its many militia allies or proxies in the region – in Lebanon, Yemen, Israel and Iraq. It did not succeed.

Along Israel’s front with Lebanon, Hezbollah immediately entered the fray, opening a second front with Israel. Its declared aim was to force Israel to commit IDF forces in the north in order to relieve their Hamas allies in Gaza, and in this they have been successful. So far, the exchanges between Hezbollah and the IDF have been intense but limited; both sides want to avoid an all-out war, but the tit-for-tat escalation continues to present the risk of a major escalation. The exchange of fire has led to the displacement of tens of thousands of civilians from Israel’s north and Lebanon’s south. The US has dedicated a high official, Amos Hochstein, to shuttle between the two countries trying to keep a lid on the conflict and working toward a ceasefire and new border arrangements. Israel wants Hezbollah fighters to withdraw from the border area and wants guarantees that its civilians can return safely to northern Israel; Hezbollah is demanding a ceasefire in Gaza as the entry point for a ceasefire between them and Israel, as well as regaining sovereignty over several border areas that are in dispute with Israel.

In the Red Sea, the Houthis also immediately joined the fray, attempting to target Israel with missiles and drones, but then settling for a sustained campaign to harass Israeli, American and global shipping in that critical waterway. The US and a broad coalition of allies have come together to try to protect shipping lanes, and the US and a few of its allies have hit the Houthis in Yemen directly. But nine months into the conflict, Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping continue, and a fair amount of traffic continues to be routed the long way around the southern tip of Africa.

In Iraq and Syria, Iranian-aligned militias also jumped into the fray, mainly targeting the US. Over the first months of the war, these militias launched over 160 attacks on US bases and forces in the region. When three US service personnel were killed by such an attack at the end of January, the Biden administration finally launched a series of attacks on 85 targets in seven different sites in Iraq and Syria. The American action appeared to have the desired effect, as Iraqi and Syrian militias did not resume their previous pattern of attack.

The gravest regional escalation, however, was the direct military exchange between Iran and Israel in April. On 1 April Israel attacked and destroyed a building in the Iranian embassy complex in Damascus killing 16 Iranians and Syrians, including eight officers of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps. Iran retaliated with a direct missile and drone attack on Israel – the first such attack from Iranian territory. And Israel retaliated with a direct IDF air force attack on a military base in Isfahan, also the first overt direct military attack by Israel on Iranian territory. A direct Israeli-Iranian military escalation is the very highest level of regional escalation that the US was intent on avoiding in October. So far, the two attacks have remained one-offs, but they have set a new bar for future tension between the two countries, especially as Iran continues to skirt the nuclear weapon threshold.

Assessment

It’s quite clear that the US has not been able to steer the war its way over the past nine months. The primary area of agreement between Israel and the US, the defeat of Hamas, has perhaps fared the best: Hamas’s fighting capacities have been decimated and its control of Gaza largely replaced with Israeli occupation; nevertheless, this goal has not been fully achieved, as Hamas still holds hostages, still launches raids and attacks, and still stands as the opposing party that Israel and the US have to negotiate with. On the other US goals of minimizing the loss of life among Palestinian civilians, minimizing the massive collateral damage that has flattened most of Gaza and pouring enough humanitarian supplies into the strip, it is fair to say that none of these goals have been achieved. Nor has the goal to steer the conflict toward a PA-centred post-war Gaza situation and a longer-term two-state pathway. And while the region has not erupted into full-scale war – and that is significant – the war has ignited two sustained conflicts along the Lebanese-Israeli border and in the Red Sea and raised a new state-to-state conflict threshold between Israel and Iran. In a recent paper, my colleague at the Middle East Institute, Brian Katulis, graded US policy toward the conflict with the following results:

• Supporting Israel’s military campaign to defeat Hamas: A-
• Securing the release of hostages: B-
• Preventing a wider regional war: C+
• Ensuring protection of civilians: D-
• Facilitating humanitarian aid: D-

Signs of Hope

But as of this writing, there are signs that US diplomacy might finally be getting some traction. The three-phase war-ending plan that President Biden announced on 31 May has received tentative ascent from both parties to the conflict and negotiators are hopeful that a final agreement might be possible. Indeed, Biden presented the plan as originally an Israeli proposal. Phase one would involve a six-week ceasefire, a partial exchange of captives, and a surge of humanitarian aid; phase two would involve a permanent ceasefire, a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, and a release of all Israeli hostages in exchange for more Palestinians in Israeli prisons; phase three would usher in a longer phase of reconstruction in Gaza.

It is not clear if this agreement will actually see the light of day. There are voices in the Israeli military that advocate stopping the war even if Hamas persists, albeit in a much diminished form; but Netanyahu continues to insist that the full destruction of Hamas remains his government’s goal. Nor can anyone be certain that Hamas would stick to its side of the deal. But the war seems to be approaching some form of denouement and US diplomacy is helping to provide an exit ramp for both parties. It is important to note that both sides are stumbling to this position not because of US power and influence, but because they have fought each other to a point of mutual exhaustion of sorts, and might be looking for a way to end this phase of the conflict.

US Relations in the Wider Region

For US relations in the wider Middle East, this conflict has had a marked impact. In terms of public opinion, a whole new generation in the Arab and wider Muslim world has been scarred by the images emanating from this latest conflict. There was some criticism of the terrorist aspects of the Hamas attacks, although in my view not nearly enough, but in general, young people for whom the Palestinian issue was a theme of their parents’ generation, have now internalized their own emotions about the issue. And throughout the last nine months, notwithstanding Biden’s criticism and admonishments about the conduct of the war, the regional public has seen that the war has been fought largely with US weapons and ammunition, a steady stream of arms transfers, and billions of dollars of support. This will sustain high levels of anti-American sentiment among the publics of the region. Not to mention that it is already a new recruitment angle for radical extremist groups.

Among the governments of the region, however, the situation is different. For leaders in Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, there is deep hostility towards Hamas. And as the conflict erupted, it also became clear that the US was the key global power that could help coax this conflict toward an end; it is nothing that China or Russia could be helpful in. And in the Iranian aerial attack on Israel, those same states were reminded that the US remained the only viable security partner that could help build effective defences against such Iranian threats.

As the conflict erupted, it also became clear
that the US was the key global power that
could help coax this conflict toward an end;
it is nothing that China or Russia could be helpful in.

The Abraham Accords with the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco have all survived the crisis, although they have gone temporarily colder. Sudan, the other Accords signatory, has sunk into civil war. One of the main regional impacts of the war is that it thwarted, at least for the time being, the momentum toward Saudi normalization with Israel as part of a tripartite deal between the US, Saudi Arabia and Israel. US-Saudi talks to strengthen their relations with potential new agreements on defence, energy and technology continued apace, but any defence treaty with Saudi Arabia – which has remained a Saudi demand – could only have a chance of getting a two-thirds majority in the US Senate if Saudi-Israeli normalization was part of the package. Before the war, Saudi Arabia might have settled for fairly limited concessions from Israel relating to Palestinian issues; after the war, Saudi Arabia – taking its own, and the wider Muslim world’s, public opinion into account –  must insist on an irreversible path to Palestinian statehood. The current Israeli government, and probably any government in the very near term, is very far from offering such a concrete commitment. The mood in Israel is quite the opposite.

As Washington contemplates its future influence and policy in the Middle East it should be quite apparent that regional middle powers like Israel, Iran, Saudi Arabia and others, as well as some strong-armed, non-state actors, will determine much of what goes on in the region; but it is also clear that the US still has the largest influence in the region compared to its great power rivals. And of course, how US influence and policy develops over the coming months and years will depend on who wins the presidential election in November and what priorities that new administration will set for itself and the region.

Header photo: President Joe Biden speaks on the phone. Tuesday, July 9, 2024, in the Oval Office of the White House. (Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz)