All nations, even very close allies, have strategic disagreements.
Israel’s strategic interest in Lebanon is the ability to return more than 100,000 of its citizens to their homes in northern Israel. Those civilians have been dislocated since last October, when the Lebanese Hezbollah joined Hamas’s war by firing rockets into Israeli settlements. The U.S. strategic interest is to maintain diplomatic efforts to end the rocket fire and Israeli counterforce. And while the Biden administration has been far too timid in the face of varied Iranian aggressions, thus encouraging further Iranian aggression, a full-scale war between Israel and Lebanon is manifestly not in the U.S. interest.
Such a war would lead to significant Lebanese civilian casualties, risk the implosion of the already fragile Lebanese political scene and Lebanon’s already bankrupt economy, and threaten more aggressive Iranian action against U.S. interests in the Middle East. This would undermine U.S. diplomatic standing with Saudi Arabia and with Muslim populations around the world. An Israeli-Hezbollah war might also tie down U.S. Navy assets in the Middle East.
That latter concern is a big one. To deter Iranian threats against Israel, the Navy has redeployed significant forces out of the Pacific. The problem is that this has provided space and opportunity for increasingly aggressive action by China against the Philippines. A U.S. treaty defense ally, the Philippines is facing a comprehensive Chinese effort to seize its exclusive economic zone. If China succeeds, it will be emboldened to take further action against Taiwan, Japan, and other regional states. American impotence encourages Pacific Rim nations to defer to Beijing rather than to align in a more common defense of freedom of navigation and the rule of law. Obstructing China’s imperial gambit is the preeminent American national security concern.
Still, by eliminating targets such as Fuad Shukr and Ibrahim Aqil (two top Hezbollah military commanders), Israel doesn’t simply degrade Hezbollah’s command and control, most experienced officers, and morale base; it does so in a manner that complicates Biden administration criticism. Israel knows that the administration cannot easily condemn the elimination of terrorists drenched in American blood. And Shukr and Aqil weren’t just drenched in American blood; they were de facto vampires. Nor, contrary to idiotic legal theories on Twitter, are Israel’s pager/walkie-talkie explosive antics disproportionate. They have effected massive damage to Hezbollah at extremely low civilian cost.
That puts the White House in a very difficult maneuvering space. Basically no one on the operational sides of the CIA, FBI, and NSA are complaining about who Israel is killing here. Few analysts are complaining either. For them, the figurative and literal neutering of Hezbollah, even if only temporary, is a cause for deep personal and professional satisfaction. This satisfaction is reinforced by frustration at stringent bureaucratic and legal obstacles that the Biden administration introduced on taking office. These rules have generally restricted the CIA’s direct action cadres from conducting aggressive counterterrorism operations.
Put simply, for many in the U.S. intelligence community and U.S. military, Israel is seen to be taking out terrorists who should have been taken out long ago. And in an election year, the White House and Vice President Kamala Harris do not want to be seen as coming out against the killing of rampant killers of Americans.
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In a sense, then, Israel is trapping the Biden administration in a strategic no man’s land.
The administration doesn’t want Israel to do what it is doing but neither can it easily oppose that action. What the United States should do is offer Israel support for targeted action designed to pressure Hezbollah to come with concessions to the negotiating table. But Washington should also make clear to Jerusalem that regardless of what happens, key Navy assets will need to head to the Pacific soon.