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2024-12-15 Home Front: Politix
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Biden Admin Takes Credit for Israeli Victories It Tried To Prevent
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[FreeBeacon] Biden administration officials have claimed credit this week for the ongoing collapse of the Iranian axis, seeking to recast their role in a series of Israeli victories that they worked to thwart.
Hours after the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria on Sunday, President Joe Biden touted "the unflagging support of the United States" for Israel’s war against "Iran and its proxies," Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Biden noted that Israel had weakened the coalition of tyrants and terrorists in the region to a point where it became "impossible ... for them to prop up the Assad regime."
"Our approach has shifted the balance of power in the Middle East," the president boasted in remarks at the White House. "Through this combination of support for our partners, sanctions [on the Assad regime], and diplomacy and targeted military force when necessary, we now see new opportunities opening up for the people of Syria and for the entire region."
The Biden administration has overseen crucial U.S. military and diplomatic support for Israel during the past 14 months of the war. But from the outset, Biden and his aides have also pressed Israel to reach accommodation with its enemies—criticizing, threatening, and punishing the U.S. ally in the name of regional deescalation. By early this year, before Israel had militarily defeated Hamas or seriously retaliated against Hezbollah or Iran, Biden was already publicly calling for an end to the fighting.
"Biden tried to prevent us from winning this war in every way he could," Gadi Taub, a historian at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a cohost of the Israel Update podcast told the Washington Free Beacon. "Now that we’re winning in defiance of him, he’s pretending that he was with us all along."
On Oct. 9, 2023, two days after Hamas started the war with a surprise invasion of southern Israel, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged leaders of the devastated region to "stand firm because we are going to change the Middle East." The following week, Biden flew to Tel Aviv and—even as he embraced Netanyahu and affirmed U.S. support for Israel—sought to contain Israel’s military response.
"President Biden and his top aides have been urging Israeli leaders against carrying out any major strike against Hezbollah, the powerful militia in Lebanon, that could draw it into the Israel-Hamas war, American and Israeli officials say," the New York Times reported at the time. "U.S. officials believe Israel would struggle in a two-front war and that such a conflict could draw in both the United States and Iran, the militia’s main supporter."
According to the Times, the Biden administration aimed to preempt "an Israeli overreaction to Hezbollah rocket attacks," which forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of residents from the north of the country, and "harsh Israeli tactics in an expected ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza that would compel Hezbollah to enter the war" in solidarity with the Palestinian terrorist group.
"The response in the Gaza Strip has been over the top"
Netanyahu recalled in an address to the Knesset last month that the Biden administration had been against every major Israeli military advance in Gaza, starting with troops going into the strip at the end of last October.
"The United States had reservations, and proposed that we not enter with ground forces. It took issue with the entry into Gaza City and into Khan Younis, and first and foremost it was strongly opposed to the entry into Rafah," Netanyahu said, naming Gazan cities that saw decisive Israeli battles with Hamas.
In December 2023, less than seven weeks into the war, the Biden administration demanded that Israel wind down major military operations in Gaza. Speaking at the White House in February, Biden called for a permanent "pause" in the war, saying "the conduct of the response ... in the Gaza Strip has been over the top."
In May, as Israeli troops carried out initial raids in Rafah, Hamas’s main hub for smuggling weapons and other supplies into Gaza, Biden declared a partial weapons embargo on Israel meant to halt the operation. "There are a lot of innocent people who are starving, a lot of innocent people who are in trouble and dying, and it's gotta stop," he said in an interview with CNN.
Later that month, Biden presented a proposal for a "permanent end to hostilities "and regional peace deal. He said his administration had for "the past several months" been "relentlessly focused" on bringing a "durable end to the war."
In September, shortly after the conclusion of the Rafah campaign, the Israeli military assessed that Hamas had been militarily defeated in Gaza.
"I am comfortable with them stopping"
Meanwhile, the Biden administration stepped up efforts to head off Israel’s counteroffensive against Hezbollah.
Asked by a reporter in late September if he was aware of and comfortable with Israel’s plans for a ground incursion into Lebanon, Biden replied, "I am more aware than you might know, and I am comfortable with them stopping. We should have a ceasefire now."
In October, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the Biden administration opposed Israel’s intensified airstrikes on Hezbollah targets in Beirut, which had recently killed Hezbollah’s top leader, Hassan Nasrallah.
"There are specific strikes that it would be appropriate for Israel to carry out," Miller told reporters, "But when it comes to the scope and nature of the bombing campaign that we saw in Beirut for the past few weeks, it's something that we made clear to the government of Israel we had concerns with and we were opposed to."
Last month, according to Hebrew media reports, slowdowns in U.S. weapons deliveries hampered Israel’s war effort in Lebanon and Gaza. Current and former Israeli officials confirmed the reports to the Free Beacon.
Israel nonetheless wiped out most of Hezbollah’s formidable weapons arsenal, terrorist infrastructure, and leadership before agreeing to a U.S.-brokered ceasefire in Lebanon late last month.
"Take the win"
Iran directly entered the war for the first time in April, launching more than 300 missiles and drones at the Israel. Biden emphasized that Israel had intercepted nearly all the incoming projectiles with the help of a U.S.-led regional coalition, and urged Netanyahu not to respond.
"Take the win," Biden reportedly advised.
Iran attacked again in October, firing more than 180 missiles at the Jewish state. Biden this time acknowledged Israel’s "right to respond." But he said "they should respond proportionally" and avoid hitting Iranian nuclear facilities. A week later, a U.S. intelligence leak exposed potential Israeli plans for retaliation.
After a mostly symbolic response to the first Iranian attack, Israel hit back in October with a wave of airstrikes that crippled Iran’s missile production and air defenses, as well as a secret nuclear weapons research facility. 
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Posted by Frank G 2024-12-15 08:50||
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