Hours before the Israel Defense Forces incinerated Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and other senior officials in Beirut, the US Ambassador to the United Nations was in a thankful mood. Taking to social media after Joe Biden’s final attendance at the UN General Assembly as America’s President, Linda Thomas Greenfield thanked her boss.
“Mr. President – when you came into office, you told the world that diplomacy would once again be at the center of our foreign policy” she wrote, in a post accompanied by a picture showing her clasping Biden by the arm as Secretary of State Antony Blinken watched the scene, beaming. “You charged us with taking up the leadership mantle at the UN. I am so proud that we have done just that”, crowed the Ambassador.
Within hours of her post’s publication, Israel’s assault on Lebanon – carried out in direct contravention Biden’s wishes and instructions – revealed the extent to which American diplomacy has been eviscerated by Netanyahu and his war cabinet. At no time in the modern era has the relationship between an Israeli Prime Minister and an American President been at a lower ebb. With fewer than 115 days left in office, Biden’s capacity to influence Israel appears entirely to have evaporated.
As news broke of the massive Israeli air strikes on buildings where Hezbollah’s leadership was reportedly gathering for strategy meetings, the U.S. President conceded his own irrelevance. “We’re still gathering information”, he told reporters eager to secure his reaction. “I can tell you the United States had no knowledge of, or participation in the IDF action…I don’t know enough to answer that question”, he said on an airfield’s tarmac in Delaware.
Critics contend Biden is powerless to influence events because he has consistently lacked the willingness to confront Israel and set red lines that might bolster his ability to constrain Netanyahu’s behaviour. In the months since last year’s October 7th Hamas assault on southern Israel that left 1,200 Israelis dead, and hundreds more seized, violated and forced back to Gaza to be held as hostages, Biden has repeatedly described his support for the country as “ironclad”. Last week’s proposed 21-day ceasefire in Lebanon, cooked up jointly by Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron, lacked any threat to Netanyahu in the event that he failed to comply.
“It’s not so much the Israelis who are treating him as an irrelevance”, said
Jazmine El-Galal, former Pentagon adviser during the Obama administration, after learning the news of Nasrallah’s killing. “It’s that Biden is not actually trying seriously to effect any change. He’s been complaining about Netanyahu for almost a year now”, she noted, “but in the meantime the US continues to send arms and funds to Israel”.
Biden’s frustration with Netanyahu reportedly boiled over during the US leader’s visit to New York. The website Politico reported that Biden was “livid” over the Israeli leader’s refusal to entertain the proposed ceasefire, and “frustrated” about the countless times Netanyahu had humiliated Blinken and himself by making promises in private that he then publicly disavowed hours later.
Worse still, the Americans believed that Netanyahu’s own journey to the United Nations indicated a pause in Israeli military action, little imagining the assault on Beirut would begin even as the Prime Minister was taking to the podium in New York to correct what he called “the lies and slander” of other world leaders.
Now, Biden has even more to worry about. Many foreign policy analysts in Washington believe that Nasrallah’s killing raises the stakes in the region to an substantial degree, and increases the likelihood that Iran will engage in direct reprisals for the assassination of their Lebanese proxy’s leader.
A widening of the conflict would not only further complicate Biden’s final weeks in office, but could also impact the outcome of the American presidential election.
Vice President Kamala Harris is already struggling in key battleground states to cement support among Arab-American voters who have expressed fury with the administration’s handling of the crisis in Gaza. As Israel continues military operations in the West Bank, and mounts air strikes in Lebanon, she will come under fresh pressure to describe precisely how her policy in the Middle East will differ from Biden’s. Her foreign policy team, dominated by figures more practiced in the art of building transatlantic relationships, may also struggle to deal with a spiraling conflict.
Former President Donald Trump, by contrast, offers American voters a simple solution to the crisis. Without offering details, he continues to insist that he can solve the conflict within 24 hours of his return to office, and said in New York on Thursday that he is now even open to direct talks with Iran.
