Why Joe Biden is failing Israel and Ukraine
One hot war, the other one frozen: US President Joe Biden’s inaction has played a key role in both.
It has been an extraordinary week, a salutary education in the brutal realities of power politics – and one in which we may have seen how Ukraine’s war may end and just possibly how Israel’s one with Hezbollah might too.
A few days ago, both countries set out positions based on the idea that they are engaged in an existential struggle in which victory requires an escalation in their use of force. Both were urged not to do so by the United States.
By Friday, Benjamin Netanyahu had ignored this plea, while Volodymyr Zelensky had left the US apparently without the agreement of Joe Biden that western weapons could be used for deep strikes inside Russia. What’s more, the Ukrainian president had seen signs that his influence in the West is waning.
The US President has never been particularly comfortable with the use of force and, in some ways, personifies the West’s uncertainty about applying violence to compel an enemy to concede or change course. For the military profession, and indeed the leaders of Ukraine and Israel, force is a necessary part of seeking victory.
The terrible toll among Palestinians in Gaza shows what happens when the military is used in pursuit of ill-defined or unattainable ends. Biden can at least say he warned Netanyahu about his failure to set achievable political objectives there.
In Beirut, by contrast, the Israelis have also taken civilian life on a large scale but with the aim of what is apparently an achievable objective: silencing Hezbollah’s attacks on its north while dealing a blow to Iran’s regional network.
Iran may choose to respond to the killing of Hassan Nasrallah and almost the entire senior leadership of his party by retaliating with large-scale attacks on Israel. After such dramatic recent demonstrations of the quality of Israeli intelligence across the region, including the assassination in Tehran of the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, it will have to weigh any decision carefully.
Israel’s military chief, Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi, warned on Saturday: “The message is simple: anyone who threatens the citizens of Israel – we will know how to reach them.” This was an expression of what strategists call “escalation dominance”. By contrast, Iran’s attack in April, when hundreds of missiles and drones were launched at Israel with almost no effect, showed the limits of its own forces, and therefore its ability to up the ante.
If it went all out to cause real damage to Israel, Iran might well bring on a conflict that could trigger an assault on its nuclear project, in which billions have been invested over decades, as well as damage its economy badly. Its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, insisted that “the resistance forces will determine the fate of the region” but may well choose to focus on a longer-term strategy for this.
Now contrast this with the Ukrainian leader’s visit to the US this week, billed as a make-or-break moment for his plan for victory. Even as Zelensky moved from an ammunition plant in Pennsylvania to the halls of the United Nations in New York, briefings against his blueprint by administration officials were appearing.
The Wall Street Journal reported that “the Biden administration is concerned that the Ukrainian leader’s plan for winning the war against Russia lacks a comprehensive strategy”.
The New York Times followed with one piece expressing the intelligence community’s view that authorising deep strikes could prompt “forceful retaliation” by Russia, and another under the headline “Zelensky’s Star Power Fades on Capitol Hill”. This ennui among lawmakers speaks to the difficulties Ukraine will have in keeping US funding regardless of who wins the White House in November.
Staying an extra day to woo Donald Trump, Zelensky had to endure a public monologue in which the presidential candidate boasted about the quality of his friendship with President Putin. Trump added that even before his self-predicted return to the White House, “I think ... we can work out something that’s good for both sides, it’s time”. That hinted at precisely the kind of imposed deal – freezing Russian gains since 2022 – that most Ukrainians dread.
While Zelensky insisted the Trump meeting showed a mutual commitment to a “just peace”, Kamala Harris’s words will have been much more to his liking. By insisting Ukraine should not be forced into terms that amounted to surrender, the Democratic candidate managed to strike a clear difference between her own message and Biden’s unenthusiastic positioning this week.
Ukrainian leaders have often criticised their allies for failing to commit to victory. These thoughts are usually voiced privately, though occasionally in public – Zelensky, complaining three months ago about foreign aid, asked: “Is it enough to win? No. Is it late? Yes.”
While Biden appeared to respond to that on Thursday, when he pledged “the United States will provide Ukraine with the support it needs to win this war”, the definition of victory is unclear and support for the idea, however formulated, is slipping among allies.
A few days ago at the Labour Conference, I asked the defence secretary, John Healey, whether the British government has its own view of what victory will look like. He answered: “It is absolutely preventing Putin from prevailing.” That leaves open whether Ukraine might have to reconcile itself to the loss of Crimea and territories in the east.
The British at least have remained solid in their support. There is considerable unease in the Foreign Office about the ebbing commitment of European allies, Germany and France in particular, to stay the course.
Key to the struggle among western allies to maintain “strategic patience” has been Biden’s vagueness about defining success and nervousness about doing so in terms of a defeat of Russia. Zelensky feels he is being held back.
This same grievance has been heard from Israelis too, but Netanyahu has felt able to ignore such requests from the US while continuing to receive its weapons.
Given the chance to pommel his foe to the north, Israel’s leader intends to press his advantage. His relationship with Biden has never been warm, and Netanyahu’s actions also reflect a sense that as the US president’s days in office ebb away, so too does his authority.
Seen from an American perspective this smacks of ingratitude, given the enormous lengths to which Biden has gone to help Ukraine and Israel. And in trying to calibrate how far he should support their war aims, the president has to measure the risk of nuclear conflict with Russia, or a general conflagration in the Middle East.
Although Biden has often shown what his admirers would argue is admirable caution when using force, factors in recent months have combined to leave him looking more like a spectator than the leader of the free world. He has sought to avoid conflict while the US is heading for elections, a contest he had to step back from due to the effects of ageing on his faculties.
Bereft of clear US leadership on what winning might look like, and what kind of human cost is acceptable in pursuing it, Netanyahu has taken advantage of the situation while Zelensky has been left to languish.
Biden began his term in power with the debacle in Afghanistan, now there is speculation in Kyiv and other western capitals that he might end it with a setback on an altogether larger scale in Ukraine. As one western official said: “If the abandonment of our Afghan allies emboldened Putin, imagine what effect a failure in Ukraine might have.”
The Sunday Times
