The Administration’s Foreign Policy

Israel in the Age of Incoherence

Walter Russell Mead in the WSJ writes  about America’s aimless foreign policy.   As we and so many others have stated so many times, the Biden-Blinken team does not seem to understand the world around them.  They misunderstand America’s enemies, as Mead says, assuming they want stability when they want a weaker America.   They compound that misunderstanding by pressuring their allies to act contrary to their interests without any gain for US interests.  The question for America’s allies who are in the middle of the world’s tension – Israel, Ukraine, Philippines, and other countries is can they have a coherent foreign policy, if their main ally and patron does not?

In Israel the main debate amongst senior politicians and the generals is to what extent and when does Israel have to align its foreign and defense policy with that of the United States?  Gantz and Eizenkot felt that alignment with the United States was more important than both national unity as well as Israel’s stated war goals.  It seems to me that Gantz said to himself he tried to convince the US otherwise, but once he realized that the Biden Administration wouldn’t budge, Israel had no choice but to go along with their plans.   Netanyahu on the other hand continues as he always has – trying to chart a course that will fill Israel’s needs while agreeing to follow US policy.  This leads to contradiction and incoherence in itself.  

If we examine Israel’s actions, we can see how this is so.

Israeli foreign and security policy as seen by its managing of the war it is fighting on 7 fronts seems incoherent and often times contradictory.   Israel states as its main war goals in Gaza are the dismantling of Hamas military and civil abilities and the return of the hostages. However, Israel uses its diplomatic and military power in ways that hurt both goals.  The two goals can theoretically be attained by diplomatic or military means but they are best attained by a combination of the two.  That would require a coordinated and coherent negotiating strategy that allowed the military to attain the war goals and a military strategy that left open the opportunity for a diplomatic solution. 

Nothing makes diplomacy easier than having your enemy under tremendous military pressure.  The imminent death of your enemy’s leaders or the breakup of the regime clarify, for the enemy, the consequences of continuing to fight.   Even with terrorist groups like Hamas, especially since they actually control a defined territory, the loss of everything will create circumstances that will force concessions from them.   While some terrorist leaders hope to die Achilles-like, in glory, this does not seem to be the makeup of Hamas leaders – although they are happy to sacrifice other people’s lives for the “cause”.    In this way, a coherent policy would include a military solution of killing the entire leadership vs a diplomatic solution that would combine surrender with the leadership’s ability to leave Gaza.  This policy would mean they can live to fight another day (in exile without their fighters) or die on the battlefield.

This would be (would have been) a coherent policy and at the beginning it seemed that that was the direction Israel was going in. 

However, there were two errors that prevented that coherence.  The first was in sending military people to do the negotiating.   The head of the Mossad and the head of the Shabach (GSS) were the lead negotiators even though their “day job” is to locate and kill the enemy and free the hostages by means of military force and intelligence.  Israel was without its two top people in undercover operations while trying to figure out how to get the hostages and kill Hamas leaders.   This reduced Israel’s military capabilities and by using people with “connections” instead of people who know how to negotiate It reduced its diplomatic capabilities. They chose these two because they had contacts in Qatar and Egypt and more importantly, they wanted to match the US team – which was headed for some reason, by the head of the CIA (more incoherence).

The second error was the IDF’s believing Egyptian statements that there were no tunnels in Rafah and the Philadelphi Corridor that Hamas uses to re-arm, as well as not understanding the extent of the tunnel network.   So, they left Rafah to the end and didn’t use enough firepower during the first phases of the war.   That might sound odd considering all the destruction done in Gaza, but the relatively small number of civilian casualties combined with the unwillingness to destroy main Hamas headquarters – and by this I mean Shifa Hospital – led to a slowing of the operation and a lengthening of the war.

This also led to two other errors which was the withdrawal of IDF forces from captured areas, allowing Hamas to regroup and starting the Rafah operation with 50% of the forces needed as they used one division instead of two.     

It seems to me that all of these errors were attempts to align Israeli foreign policy with America’s - which was to force “stability” instead of victory.   The same can be said regarding the war in the north and the Israeli response to Iran’s massive missile and drone attack in April.   Regarding Iran, Israel’s light response to an attack on its soil did nothing to deter Iran and nothing to punish it.   As we wrote back then, Israel ought to have declared war on the Islamic Republic of Iran and started a long term operation to topple the regime and degrade its military and economic capabilities.  But Israel’s response was an attempt, yet again, to align its defense and foreign policy with the “aimless” policy of the United States.   The same can be said regarding the inaction of Israel regarding the Houthis. This left the US Navy in charge – in spite of the fact that US Navy orders are not to take (too much) offensive action. 

This all brings us to the main question – can Israel, or any other ally of the United States that is in a war zone – have a coherent foreign policy if the United States has none?     No one denies that the policy of the allied country has to take its patron or main ally into consideration. However, if the goals of the main ally are incoherent and not based on reality,  what can be done?  What if the patron’s foreign policy is based on nothing more than wishful thinking and failed plans?   For example, current US policy regarding Iran.

For Israel it all comes down to Iran.  The Islamic Republic of Iran is at the center of all of this and a proper foreign policy ought to have been Iran based (that was true for the past decade at least and more true after October 7).   The fighting in Gaza surely had to be first military front because the people would have accepted nothing else (even though there was military logic is doing the north first) but even diplomatically Israel was not at work to isolate Iran.    It should have been Iran centered and all of Israel’s erstwhile allies should have been pressured to stop Iranian funding of their proxies and their military.  The Israeli Air Force, submarine corps and the  Mossad ought to have started degrading Iranian military capabilities and the Houthis should have been bombed mercilessly after they started shooting missiles at Israel and preventing shipping from reaching Eilat.  In short, the ground war in Gaza should not have prevented an air, diplomatic and financial war on Iran and its main proxies. 

However, this was against American foreign policy which was, as Mead says, based on the misconception that Iran, China and Russia want stability first and foremost.  This policy, as Mead states “wanders aimlessly” since it is not based on the reality of the situation.   

The question is not if Israeli policy in general needs to align with US policy – that is as clear in Israel as it is in Ukraine or the UK or Germany.  But if US foreign policy is incoherent – meaning it doesn’t even follow its own national interests, is it possible for the minor allies to have a coherent policy?

I think am being a bit incoherent here so let’s go back to 1973 to explain.    Israel crossed the Suez Canal and surrounded the Egyptian Third Army.  Destroying the Third Army would have, for all intents and purposes removed Egypt as an existential threat to Israel so it was in Israel’s interests to destroy it.   However, the United States under Nixon and Kissinger understood that the real goal of the war was not just to remove Egypt as a threat to Israel, important as that was, but to remove the Soviet Union from the middle east.   Had American foreign policy been a cease fire at all costs and not had a greater goal in mind – that policy would have been incoherent.  It would have left Egypt as an existential threat to Israel and an enemy of the United States, without dealing with the main problem in the region – the Soviet presence.  Israel might have been pressured to “take the win” as Biden would have said, and align its policy with an incoherent US one with no goal other than “quiet”.

This is what Biden-Blinken are trying to do now.  They are trying to leave Iran in place while weakening Israel diplomatically, militarily, and economically – all in the name of a stability that the Iranians along with the Chinese and Russians do not want.   

Regarding the errors and incoherence of Israeli policy that we mentioned above – was it at all possible for Israel, under any leadership to form a coherent foreign policy when the United States itself has none?   Gantz and Eizenkot came down on the side of those who think that if Israel cannot convince the US to be coherent and correct, it is Israel that must pursue incoherence as long as the US wants it too.  For Netanyahu, who is responsible for the first errors mentioned above (along with Gantz) he has tried to play both sides of the coin.  What we have as a result is a half effort in Rafah, a meaningless retaliation against Iran and a north that is neither here nor there.

Did he – did they have a choice?  What to do when your main patron hasn’t a clue?  It is a question now for Israel and for that matter for Ukraine.  Soon enough it will be a question for Guiana, Philippines, Taiwan and even Japan.