Did Netanyahu Threaten Biden with Armageddon?
What exactly did Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu have in mind when he ordered the assassinations of a high-ranking Hezbollah commander in Beirut and, more brazenly, the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, the political head of Hamas, in Tehran, Iran’s capital? The assassinations have swept away all the redlines that kept previous conflicts from escalating. Israel, having provoked Iran so brazenly that no self-respecting government could back down, seems to have lined up massive American support for war against both Iran and Lebanon. I suspect that Netanyahu, having failed to find joy in his meetings with both Trump and Kamala Harris, somehow persuaded President Biden to risk a major foreign war virtually on the eve of what may be the most important American elections of my lifetime. But how did he do it?
Many Washington pundits speculate that Netanyahu saw the assassinations as a way of strengthening Israel’s bargaining power in its negotiations with Hamas. This does not explain the assassination in Beirut, daring Hezbollah to do something in retaliation.
Was it a desperate attempt to expand the war because Netanyahu felt trapped by the negotiations? Success in negotiations would not only end the Gaza War but his political career as well. There may be another explanation. Netanyahu found no joy In his Washington visit despite the 28 standing ovations in Congress. He discovered that pinning his hopes on Trump becoming President was no longer viable. Trump rather bluntly told him to ‘get it over with quickly’ – i.e., stop the war in Gaza (even if it leaves Hamas in charge). Kamala Harris said much the same, couched in more humanitarian language. Furthermore, a Trump electoral victory no longer seems as likely as when Netanyahu first cadged the invitation to Washington. Netanyahu realized that he has only one real ally in Washington, President Joe Biden, whose generational devotion to the Zionist cause trumps his loathing for Netanyahu.
To stay in office Netanyahu needs to eliminate Hezbollah and Hamas – and Iran — before January 20th, 2025. Given its performance in Gaza, he knows the Israeli Army cannot win a quick ground war in Lebanon, while Hezbollah can inflict politically unacceptable pain on Israel. Without US assistance, Hezbollah’s aerial firepower could overwhelm Israeli air defenses; if Iran joins in, they will wreak havoc.
What did transpire in the Oval Office last week? We only know, officially, that Biden repeated his “ironclad commitment” to Israel’s defense. Last October, we heard that the ‘ironclad commitment’ did not extend to an Israeli escalation of hostilities. Now the Pentagon describes serious new deployments to the region, including 80 land-based combat aircraft, a carrier battle group, and a Marine amphibious ready group, as “increased support for the defense of Israel.” Nowhere do we hear much American concern for what any reasonable observer would regard as an “over-the-top” Israeli provocation. “The killing had not helped efforts to broker a ceasefire in Gaza” was the sternest comment President Biden could make in public. Privately reading him the “riot act,” as White House leakers would have it, do not get Bibi’s attention. Netanyahu is getting more pushback from Israelis than from Biden; Israeli TV reported the head of Mossad accusing Netanyahu of deliberately sabotaging the negotiations to end the fighting and free Israeli hostages.
Last October we deployed similar forces to the region to deter a Hezbollah attack on Israel; it mostly worked. However, this time we have explicitly deployed to protect Israel should Hezbollah or Iran exercise their own “right to self-defense,” a right granted only to Israel. We are signaling that we expect a pre-emptive Israeli attack on Lebanon very shortly. The American Embassy in Beirut has just issued a panic-inducing warning to American citizens to leave Lebanon immediately by any means possible in any direction possible. I can only conclude that we expect an Israeli attack on Lebanon, perhaps even before this article gets published. Our rhetoric has changed as well. Only a week ago, Secretary of State Antony Blinken issued a statement that, without naming names, implicitly blamed Netanyahu for sabotaging any hope of peace.
To the long-suffering people of the region, and that description includes Israelis, it looks like the die has been cast. But an Israeli attack into Lebanon has a low probability of successfully driving Hezbollah out of southern Lebanon and a high probability of Hezbollah inflicting heavy damage on Israel.
Did Netanyahu get Biden’s guarantee of American support in advance of the attack? If so, how did he do it? I suggest that Netanyahu, either explicitly or by innuendo, introduced a “nuclear option” into the conversation in the Oval Office; in this case not a figure of speech but a reference to the 90-400 nuclear warheads (depending on whom you talk to) in the Israeli arsenal. The argument Netanyahu may have delivered would go something like this: “Joe, Israel cannot survive the threats it faces on so many fronts. The threats will only get worse in the future. Therefore, I am going to eliminate them by any means at my disposal.”
I remember, in Israel’s previous wars, that any potential debacle threatening to cause heavy Israeli casualties always generated panic in Washington that Israel would reach for nuclear weapons to save its forces. In the early heady days of victory in the 1973 Syrian-Egyptian attack on Israel, both Cairo and Damascus went to great pains to signal that they had limited goals that did not pose an existential threat to Israel. They did not want to scare Israel into using nuclear weapons. Now my guess is that Netanyahu has used the nuclear threat to scare Biden into getting American forces to fight Israel’s battles. Any other explanations would be welcome.