With new signs each day pointing toward a broader war in the Middle East, it’s important to recall the string of events that got us here.
It began Oct. 7 with the Hamas terrorist invasion of Israel, leading it to respond with aerial and ground attacks in Gaza.
Almost immediately, Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon began firing rockets to force Israel to divert troops and weapons to its northern border.
The next round of attacks — more than 100 — came from groups in Iraq and Syria and were aimed at American military bases.
More recently, the Houthis in Yemen began striking cargo ships in the Red Sea.
If you think something big is brewing, it’s not your imagination.
But the seemingly random developments are confusing unless you connect the dots and see the big picture.
Then everything is crystal clear — all roads lead to Iran.
Quick, somebody tell President Biden.
The commander in chief either hasn’t connected the dots or is refusing to see the links to Iran.
How else to explain his determination to focus on the symptoms and ignore the cause of a potential global conflict?
Coalition of the Hesitant
All the terror groups are Tehran’s proxies, and the sequential activation of them is coordinated by the mullahs.
They aim to destroy Israel, and are making moves to see how far they can go before the United States stops them.
Or, more accurately, whether this president will stop them.
The first part of the White House answer came Thursday and Friday when the American-led Coalition of the Very Hesitant belatedly delivered on weeks of threats to the Houthis.
The repeated assaults on cargo ships in the Red Sea were playing havoc with global trading routes, so the White House, Great Britain and others took out a few launching sites and a radar station in Yemen.
The response made noise and got attention, but was not designed to achieve a military objective.
The too-limited assault came gift-wrapped with assurances the US is not looking for a wider war.
On Saturday, Biden told reporters a message was delivered “privately” to Iran, though it wasn’t clear whether the private message is different from the public one.
It better be because the public plea for restraint will likely embolden the well-armed Houthis, according to regional analysts.
As one told USA Today, the impact of the response is “peanuts in the wider context of Houthi weapon and military capabilities — especially their maritime weapons. They are savvier, more prepared, and more equipped than anyone is really acknowledging.”
More important, it’s a near-certainty that Iran welcomes the attack on its Yemen pawns as an excuse to ramp up its regional mayhem.
Unless Biden responds in ways that actually deter Iran, he will be forced deeper into a hole of his own making.
Unfortunately for Israel and our allies everywhere, his go-to reaction is dominated by an instinct for appeasement.
That instinct was on full display during his chaotic bug-out of Afghanistan, proving he was willing to pay a steep price to end American involvement.
Our troops and allies, especially Israel, have been paying a price of their own ever since.
His dithering, deep aversion to risk also hampered support for Ukraine, with a stalemate increasingly likely to be the final result of Russia’s invasion.
On Iran, the president continues to embrace the misguided kid-gloves treatment that started during the Obama-Biden administration.
His lifting of oil and trading sanctions and payment of $6 billion for the return of hostages were aimed at wooing the mullahs back into another flawed nuclear agreement.
Funding both sides
As they did the first time, when Obama was president, they again took the concessions and used the new wealth to finance and arm their terror proxies.
Because we also help Israel financially, the US is funding both sides of the conflict.
How’s that for stupid?
Biden compounded those mistakes by lifting the Trump-era designation of the Houthis as a terrorist organization.
His reluctance to act like the leader of the free world is off the charts now that he’s running for re-election in a party where major elements are turning against the Jewish state.
In addition to the Democrats’ antisemitic caucus led by Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, the young and woke who demand that Israel get out of Gaza didn’t like Biden to begin with, and his support for Israel has further alienated them.
He reads the polls, which is why he has mixed his basic support for Israel with growing criticism over civilian casualties in Gaza.
Worse, his repeated demand that Israel accept a Palestinian state after the war is undercutting the war effort and serves only to reward the terrorists.
The message is that aggression pays.
As such, Biden’s reaction reveals he doesn’t realize or care what animates Iran and its proxies.
The Islamists’ conflict with Israel isn’t about borders or whether Palestinians get a state of their own. It’s Jew hatred and the goal is the elimination of Israel.
That’s what Hamas is proving, and it doesn’t care how many Palestinian civilians die as long as the mad cause survives.
Its leaders say publicly that they aim to repeat the horrors of Oct. 7 as often as possible.
That means Biden’s efforts at placating Iran, the Arab “street” and his domestic critics are not just doomed to fail.
They are also directly contributing to the risk of a larger war, one where America gets sucked in by Biden’s refusal to be clear and consistent about enforcing his red lines.
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Sway of the world
His mixed messages about Israel illustrate another problem, too.
Namely, how quickly he caves into pressure from The New York Times and other leftist media.
Although his initial response to the Hamas invasion was to show total support for Israel, he started going wobbly even before the ground invasion response began.
When the Times and other anti-Israel media called the aerial bombardment too harsh and joined growing calls for a cease-fire, Biden started hedging his bets.
When he didn’t express concern about Gazan civilians himself, press aides were quick to announce he had scolded Israeli leaders in private conversations.
Secretary of State Tony Blinken, instead of demanding the Red Cross visit Israeli hostages and that United Nations relief workers in Gaza stop fronting for Hamas, kept the pressure on Israel by attending its war Cabinet meetings.
There he urged military restraint and insisted Israel admit more civilian aid trucks — many of which were openly hijacked by Hamas.
Yet even now, as growing numbers of Israeli soldiers die, there are no reliable reports of Gazan civilian casualties.
That hasn’t stopped the media from repeating numbers distributed by the Gazan Health Ministry, which is controlled by Hamas.
Its supposed death statistics never distinguish between civilians and terrorists, yet the Times and others repeat them as if they are trustworthy.
Regrettably, the gullible gang includes a weak and unsteady American president.
Source link: https://nypost.com/2024/01/13/opinion/joe-bidens-handling-of-the-middle-east-crisis-is-just-flat-out-embarrassing/