“We need a ceasefire now.” [en la frontera entre Israel y Líbano]”, insisted the president of the United States, Joe Biden, on Monday at the White House. Just hours later, Israel launched its “limited” invasion of southern Lebanon against the Iranian-backed Shiite militia Hezbollah. The sequence has been repeated again and again in recent months in the Middle East: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has systematically ignored calls from the United States for a truce… Without major consequences on the part of Washington.
Just over 24 hours after that call from the American president, the prospect of any possible agreement has been definitively blown up, when Iran launched an attack with some 200 missiles against Israel in retaliation for the invasion of Lebanon and the death of the leader. of Hezbollah, Hasan Nasrallah. Biden has ordered his Armed Forces to come to the aid of the Israeli ally.
The latest events have ruined American ambitions since the war in Gaza began almost a year ago: to prevent the conflict from spreading to other parts of the Middle East and ending up dragging in other participants, most specifically Iran. Their successive attempts to pressure a temporary ceasefire that would lead to a permanent solution have come to nothing. Especially as Biden’s November 5 term expiration date has roughly passed. From that date on, it will be the winner of the elections who will gradually take over the reins of the country and its foreign policy during the three and a half months of transition.
The pattern has worsened in recent weeks, as tensions on the Lebanese border have worsened. Last Thursday, the United States launched a 21-day ceasefire proposal for the Blue Line, the demarcation line between Israel and Lebanon. On Friday, Israel ignored it. An enraged Netanyahu promised, from the podium of the UN General Assembly, to continue his country’s attacks against Hezbollah. Just hours later, without Washington receiving prior warning, the Israeli government gave the green light to a massive airstrike in the southern suburbs of Beirut that killed the leader of Hezbollah, in a step that further aggravated tensions in the region.
On this occasion, the Israeli invasion was received by the US Administration with resignation, a shrug or even acquiescence. Israel maintains that the action is essential to complete its airstrikes in recent weeks and finish dismantling Hezbollah’s ability to attack populations in the north of its territory, as the Shiite militia has done since the beginning of the war in Gaza. The crisis in the region has displaced thousands of people in northern Israel and 10% of the Lebanese population.
“Unintended consequences”
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke with his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant, before the start of the offensive to declare his agreement with the need to dismantle Hezbollah’s infrastructure in southern Lebanon and reiterate Washington’s support to the defense of Israel. At the State Department, spokesman Matthew Miller declared that “military pressure can sometimes enable diplomacy.” And he added: “Of course, military pressure can also lead to miscalculations. “It can lead to unintended consequences, and we are in talks with Israel about all of those factors right now.”
The American reaction on Lebanon is simultaneous with its admission that it is not making progress to reach a ceasefire on the other open front in the Middle East, the war in Gaza that is about to turn a year old and is the great factor that has triggered the current hostilities along the Blue Line. Those responsible for the radical Palestinian militia Hamas, which controls Gaza, have not responded to mediators from Qatar and Egypt for weeks.
“We cannot get a clear answer from Hamas about what they are willing to consider and what they are not willing to consider,” spokesman Miller said Monday. Netanyahu, now backed by the Israeli population, also has no incentive to make concessions.
The circumstances are not in Washington’s favor. Their position is complicated by questions over who is in a position to say yes to a ceasefire agreement. Hamas leader Yahia Sinwar remains silent. In the ranks of Hezbollah it is not clear who could be the successor of Nasrallah, the man who controlled that party-militia for 30 years. And this Tuesday’s massive Iranian attack against Israel has ended up dashing any hope of Israeli containment.
Above all, time is running out for the Biden Administration, which in its final weeks in office finds its ability to influence increasingly diminished.
“Why should Israel accept a 21-day truce in exchange for vague promises of negotiation led by an administration in its decline? “I see no reason why Israel should be terribly interested,” said the former US ambassador to the area, David Hale, now in office before the Israeli invasion and the Iranian attack. think tank Wilson Center.
The fact that Biden has so far avoided imposing the main pressure tools at his disposal against Israel has also contributed to the fact that American calls have gone unheeded.
“The United States has been reluctant to impose any costs or consequences” to the policies Israel has followed, notes Aaron David Miller, former US envoy to the Middle East and now in the think tank Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Biden has always qualified any hint of criticism towards his ally with profuse statements of support for Israel’s security and that country’s right to defend itself.
“Diplomacy is of fundamental importance, but diplomacy requires urgency. It is the lack of urgency felt by the two decision makers. [Israel y Hamás en Gaza] which has prevented the US Administration from closing what is a very possible agreement,” considers Miller, in a video conference organized by the Council on Foreign Relations. According to this expert, “when steps forward have been taken in the region it has been when there have been leaders who are owners of their political decisions, not prisoners of their ideologies who do not fight at every step with the United States.”