Washington, D.C. – The administration of US President Joe Biden reacted to Iran’s historic missile and drone attack on Israel in two ways: Washington reiterated its promise to always stand by its “iron” ally Israel, and at the same time appealed to Benjamin’s government Netanyahu not to take any further actions that could drag the region into a larger war.
The coming days will show whether these two options are compatible or whether the two governments’ priorities are on a collision course, analysts told Al Jazeera.
In the short term, the Iranian attack is a coup for both Israel and its supporters in the United States: From their perspective, it offers renewed justification for Israel’s military support while diluting the world’s focus on alleged abuses committed in Gaza during seven months of war said Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Washington-based Quincy Institute.
But if Netanyahu defies U.S. calls for restraint, the Biden administration could be further hamstrung by its political and ideological commitments to Israel, which could ultimately drag Washington into a larger war, he added.
“The Israelis were told by Biden to consider this a victory and stop here,” Parsi told Al Jazeera. “While that is helpful, it is by no means strong and clear enough given Netanyahu’s systematic disregard of Biden’s advice and warnings in private over the last seven months.”
“Given that we are staring into the abyss when it comes to the region, this is a moment when Biden needs to draw a much clearer and more decisive red line for Israel and Netanyahu so as not to plunge the entire region into war,” ” he said.
Operation True Promise
Biden cut short a weekend trip and returned to Washington, D.C., as Iran fired hundreds of drones and missiles at Israel on Saturday in an operation Tehran dubbed “True Promise.”
The attack marked Iran’s first direct attack on Israel, and Iranian officials said it was intended to create “deterrence.” It was a direct response to an Israeli attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Syria, which killed eight people, including two Iranian generals, and was widely condemned for violating diplomatic norms. According to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, countries’ embassies are treated equally to their territory: Legally, the bombing of the Iranian diplomatic mission in Syria was tantamount to an attack on Iranian soil.
However, several analysts suggested that the nature of Tehran’s attacks may have been intended as a signal to Washington. The U.S. and Israel said almost all of the more than 300 launches were intercepted and only minor damage was reported. In doing so, the attack allowed Tehran to make what many saw as an inevitable response to Israel’s attack on its consulate, while also eliminating some of the variables that could come from a more surprise attack or from proxy forces, and again potentially Loud According to Khalil Jhashan, executive director of the Arab Center Washington DC, this could trigger a less manageable conflict.
“I am not inclined to conspiracies, but I feel that there has been some coordination between the parties in this regard in the last few days,” Jhashan told Al Jazeera, noting that this was reportedly happening through third parties in the region be.
“A lot of information was exchanged between Tehran and Washington. So [the attack] was no surprise…It’s a kind of political theater by different means.”
On Sunday, Reuters news agency reported, citing a Biden administration official, that the US had been in contact with Iran through Swiss intermediaries both before and after the attack. However, the official denied that Iran had made an “announcement” before the launches, which the official claimed was aimed at “destroying and causing casualties.”
“Arsonist and Firefighter”
After the attack, Iran’s mission to the United Nations signaled there were no further plans for a retaliatory strike against Israel, saying in a statement: “The matter can be considered closed.”
“However, if the Israeli regime makes another mistake, Iran’s response will be significantly harsher,” it said, warning the US to “stay away.”
For their part, senior U.S. and Israeli officials spent the hours after the attack making a flurry of calls, with Biden reportedly telling Netanyahu that Washington would not support a subsequent Israeli attack on Iran. Biden emphasized the strength Israel has shown in defending itself against the attack, administration officials said, while trying to defuse further fighting.
According to Brian Finucane, a senior adviser for the U.S. program at Crisis Group, the Biden administration’s response represented a “microcosm of its overall approach since October 7.”
“This is intended to play both the role of arsonist and fireman in Israel-Palestine in the wider Middle East,” he said.
The Biden administration has continued to provide material and political support to Israel during the war in Gaza, even as it has faced growing domestic pressure to condition aid amid widespread allegations of Israeli violations in the enclave. According to Gaza authorities, at least 33,729 Palestinians have been killed since the war began.
The government has been criticized for exerting primarily rhetorical pressure on the Netanyahu government in recent weeks while refusing to apply material pressure. However, an April 1 Israeli attack in Gaza that killed seven World Central Kitchen aid workers — including citizens of the U.S. and its allies — led the Biden administration to take its toughest stance yet toward Israel.
Still, Finucane explained that U.S. weapons have for years enabled Israeli attacks across the region that “arguably violate U.S. law.”
“Israel’s attacks in Syria, including the attack in Damascus on April 1 that triggered this particular crisis, were carried out with US-supplied warplanes,” he said, noting that the deployment could violate the Arms Export Control Act, which US -Weapons should only be used for legitimate self-defense.
Joshua Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, cited opposition from the United States, United Kingdom and France to a United Nations Security Council statement in early April condemning the Israeli attack on the Iranian consulate He described it as an “escalating violation of normal diplomatic rules.”
“The US has asserted that it is time to stop this escalation,” Landis told Al Jazeera. “But in reality it has added fuel to the fire by so unilaterally siding with Israel and violating international norms.”
Will Netanyahu listen?
The current situation leaves the next step entirely in Israel’s hands, several analysts told Al Jazeera.
Netanyahu and other Israeli officials have not yet signaled whether or how they will respond, although some in the government have called for a decisive response.
“I think it’s very clear that Washington and Tehran are ironically closer in their goal, both don’t want escalation for their own reasons,” Faras Maksad, a senior researcher at the Middle East Institute, told Al Jazeera.
“Netanyahu is the wild card here. And the danger for the US is that this should be the case [Israel] If they do not heed their calls for calm, they could be drawn in and forced to come to Israel’s aid, perhaps reluctantly,” he said.
According to Andreas Krieg, a lecturer at the School of Security Studies at King’s College London, domestic politics in both the US and Israel will likely determine what comes next.
“Netanyahu desperately needs a victory story, he desperately needs to provide some kind of strength to his own voters,” Krieg told Al Jaeera.
“That makes him the most vulnerable candidate for further escalation,” he said. “He has certainly always been very risk-taking when it comes to his political survival… So it’s not really about Israel’s security interests – it’s about his own political survival.” The Israeli prime minister has been the target of regular – and large – protests within Israel , where many called for his resignation. Several analysts have suggested that Netanyahu’s best chance of staying in power is to continue the war.
Meanwhile, the Iranian attack has already revived efforts for more military aid to Israel, after weeks of increasing pressure on the Biden administration to condition aid to its Middle East ally. On Sunday, US House Speaker Mike Johnson said he would vote on more aid for Israel in the House later this week.
“[The attack] changed the narrative. “We’re talking about Israel facing an unprecedented attack from Iran today, we’re not talking about starving children in Gaza,” Crisis Group’s Finucane said. “We are not talking about drone attacks on aid workers in Gaza, which were the subject of discussion a week ago.”
And while political pressure remains on Biden to push for an end to the war, Netanyahu is also aware that Biden likely sees the political costs of a break with Israel as even greater in an election year, the University’s Landis added of Oklahoma added.
“Ultimately, that’s the bad news that comes out of this: that Israel is prepared for a very long war in Gaza,” he said.
Because of long-standing U.S. policy, the Arab Center’s Jahshan said he could not imagine a scenario in which Biden deviates from Netanyahu, regardless of what course of action the Israeli leader takes and what regional impact it might have.
“Based on my personal knowledge of [Biden] “After watching and negotiating with him for decades, I think he is incapable of bringing a disagreement with Israel to a final conclusion,” he said.
“Perhaps more verbosity and duplicity, but a serious change in policy? he added. “I don’t foresee that happening.”