The ping-pong game at the White House continues as the Biden/Harris administration grapples with how Israel should respond to the barrage of hundreds of missiles fired by the Iranians into Israeli civilian areas. Biden originally provided a tepid response, saying that the United States would support Israel's right to defend itself, which some saw as an encouraging response. But what Biden failed to say in the immediate aftermath of the attack was that our support came with limits and caveats. That was at least somewhat cleared up today when reporters had the rare chance to ask the President about this directly as he boarded Air Force 1. When asked if he would support Israel striking Iran's nuclear weapons sites, Biden said "The answer is no." Fortunately, that decision is not Joe Biden's to make. (NY Post)
President Biden said Wednesday that he opposes a possible preemptive Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear weapons program sites as tensions between the countries grow.
“The answer is no,” the 81-year-old retiring president told reporters under the wing of Air Force One as he departed Washington for a trip to North Carolina to tour Hurricane Helene damage.
Iran on Tuesday directly attacked Israel for a second time this year — launching some 200 rockets that reportedly did little damage and caused no known Israeli casualties.
This apparent move to undercut Israel's response options is obviously not happening in a vacuum or something that Biden simply tossed out to the media randomly. We saw a preview of the current Democratic position on this question during last night's Veep debate. Tim Walz was asked whether he would support an Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear weapons facilities and he declined to answer. JD Vance stated that he would support whatever decision Israel made in that regard.
That's really all this boils down to in the end. Israel isn't looking to the United States for "approval" of its response. They simply don't want to have their hands tied by the country that is supposedly their closest and most powerful ally. If the White House wants to insist on a "proportional" response, they should be considering the fact that nearly 200 powerful missiles were fired into civilian population centers by Iran. The fact that they didn't take out huge numbers of Jews was not caused by Iran acting in a "proportional" fashion. They failed because Israel has trained its people to take to the bomb shelters when the shelling begins. If Iran could have killed more Jews, they would be celebrating in the streets today.
Sadly, this White House response is in keeping with Biden's limited approach to all of the conflicts currently threatening to set the world on fire. We are still seeing the same story play out in Ukraine. Biden continues to insist that he supports Ukraine's right to defend itself, but only to a point. Limits are placed on the targets that the Ukrainians are "allowed" to strike. Money and weapons keep flowing into the country like money down a rathole, but it's only enough to keep feeding the war machine, not as a way too bring the war to an end.
Granted, the situations are markedly different. Ukraine is highly unlikely to be able to do significant damage to Russia, to say nothing of actually "defeating" them. But Israel maintains the strongest military in the region and they have the backing of one of the world's leading nuclear superpowers. (Or at least they used to have that backing.) This "dribs and drabs" approach isn't bringing any of these foreign crises any closer to a satisfactory resolution. The pressure continues to build and whoever winds up winning the election in November is going to inherit this hot mess. It's a wonder that anyone still wants the job at this point.
