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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   34959 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 29, 2024

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Killing of Hamas leader 'doesn't help' ceasefire talks, says Biden

Mr Biden said he was “very concerned” about rising tensions in the Middle East. "We have the basis for a ceasefire. He [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] should move on it and they [Hamas] should move on it now."

He said he had spoken to Mr Netanyahu earlier on Thursday and had promised to protect Israel "against all threats from Iran", which has vowed to retaliate. Iran is Hamas's most important backer and is an arch-foe of Israel.

Is Israel Deliberately Provoking an Escalation That Might Drag the U.S. Into the Conflict?

Israel could have killed Haniyeh anywhere in the Middle East, yet deliberately chose to do so in Iran during the inauguration. That's not daring – that's the very definition of provocative.

Israel left Iran no choice but to retaliate, the scope of which remains the big question mark. But Israel also outsourced "escalation dominance" by handing to Iran to decision over whether to escalate. That's a legitimate course of policy – except that Iran may not see it that way.

The worst case scenario for Iran is an escalation that somehow involves the Americans. Iran's prize asset, its "military nuclear threshold" status, could be undermined in such an event if the United States, even reluctantly, is dragged into a conflict and attacks the Iranians.

This is where it gets interesting. Who has no interest in such an escalation? The United States, whose makeshift Middle East policy will now have to be revisited, and Iran, which clearly prefers attrition and low intensity.

Who does have a vested interest in an expanded war? Mr. Netanyahu. Which is why the conventional wisdom in Washington over the last 36 hours is that Israel carried out the Haniyeh assassination deliberately in Iran and intentionally on that day.

Does Netanyahu actually want to drag the US into a much larger war with Iran? Or is he content to strike humiliating blows against them, safe in the knowledge that the US's aegis protects them from massive retaliation, and Iran lacks the ability to pursue more fine-grained responses. Biden certainly doesn't seem to be happy either way, as his response to a wanted terrorist leader being eliminated, in a fairly elegant and collateral-minimizing way, shows.

Does Netanyahu actually want to drag the US into a much larger war with Iran? Or is he content to strike humiliating blows against them, safe in the knowledge that the US's aegis protects them from massive retaliation, and Iran lacks the ability to pursue more fine-grained responses. Biden certainly doesn't seem to be happy either way, as his response to a wanted terrorist leader being eliminated, in a fairly elegant and collateral-minimizing way, shows.

Seems to me to be an incorrect frame. Surely he doesn't really want a large war with Iran, precisely because that would be the inflection point at which their "aegis" (and exaggeration IMO) of the US is likely to break down. Just as with Ukraine, the main value proposition of supporting Israel is that no American blood need be spilt, and particularly with Israel (less so for Ukraine, but still mostly so) its super cheap for the amount of threat they absorb.

Now, some on the left don't particularly like the Israel alliance because they sympathize with Palestinians, or others have an Iran fetish. But, almost all of the Right and most of the center left agree with this general value proposition. But more of the left is slowly getting upset about it because the Hamas caucus is increasing in size on that side of the aisle and is making threats (IMO not credible ones) to not vote straight Democrat in the next election.

None of that is really practical, though. In practice both the Democrats and the Republicans support Israel over Hamas for obvious reasons. Left-wing support for Hamas is just an electoral liability for the Democrats, not a real reason for them to actually support Hamas (which would be a much worse liability). The reason is exactly as you say: The support is cheap relative to how much threat they absorb. It's better that someone else be the canary in the coal mine. It's better that someone else take the missile attacks so that you can test your missile defense technology from thousands of miles away.

Also, in general, the American electorate is against organizations that are explicitly anti-America and/or have called for terrorist attacks against America and/or have literally murdered Americans out of sheer anti-American hatred.

No one who has any serious engagement with American foreign policy could possibly be pro-Hamas, because Hamas is anti-America. You can't sit in the Situation Room, get a briefing from the top brass, and then express your support for an organization that wants you, personally, the President of the United States, to be murdered, and is only held back from literally murdering you by the strength of your bodyguards and intelligence agencies. At some point your self-preservation instincts kick in and you realize that rhetoric can only go so far.

No one who has any serious engagement with American foreign policy could possibly be pro-Hamas, because Hamas is anti-America.

Yes, and so is Iran. But the progressives are pro-both anyway, seeing their hostility towards America as the result of American foreign policy failures that we could fix by throwing Israel to the wolves. As we see in this thread, that particular view is shared with the dissident right and others

And this is why serious progressives either tone down their foreign policy views or lose their elections.

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