(JNS) Jonathan S. Tobin - Rather than be tied into the futile and self-defeating Biden policy that treats diplomacy as an end unto itself, Israel has chosen a strategy that gives it a reasonable chance to achieve victory over its enemies. This has proven to be a great shock to Washington. The expert class thinks Israel has gone rogue and that Biden is unable to "control" what the administration still considers a dependent minor ally. There's no underestimating the shock being felt in the State Department as Israel's offensive against Hizbullah has not immediately resulted in disaster for the Jewish state. The administration spent the last four years working hard to appease both Iran and Hizbullah. The conceit of American policy has been predicated on the assumption that any large-scale attack on Hizbullah would inevitably fail and lead to a far wider conflict that would only lead to catastrophe for Israel and the West. This defeatist mindset was similar to the belief that Hamas could not be overcome but only contained, and that any effort to stop, rather than to tolerate, Iran's nuclear program was similarly doomed. The fact that Israel has exposed these assumptions as dead wrong has turned the administration's worldview upside down. For a year, the administration's special envoy for Lebanon, Amos Hochstein - the author of a 2021 deal forced upon Israel that handed over some of Israel's offshore natural-gas fields to Lebanon/Hizbullah - has worked hard to pressure the Israeli government not to do anything more than reply ineffectively to Hizbullah rocket fire. If Israel were to follow U.S. advice and accept a ceasefire with Hizbullah, it would - like the various similar deals with Hamas that Washington has tried to force on the Israelis - do nothing to help the people of northern Israel and only reinforce Iran's regional power. Israel faced a choice between certain defeat for its security via American diplomacy or the possibility of achieving a genuine victory over Hizbullah and Iran via a decisive military offensive. Israel's decision to try for victory is the kind of rational choice essential to its survival and that of the West.
2024-10-02 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive