Eurasia Press & News
Ever since Iran launched an unparalleled large-scale attack against Israel on 1 October, using a barrage of nearly 200 ballistic missiles, the Middle East has been holding its breath in anticipation of a swift and crushing Israeli retaliation. Iran said its long-awaited attack was in response to Israel’s assassinations of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and a senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) officer in Beirut and of the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.
US President Joe Biden has made no secret that – unlike in April when he asked Israel to refrain from responding to Iran’s first-ever direct attack on Israel – he would support Israel’s decision to retaliate. However, he has insisted it should be proportionate, thus ensuring the US would not be dragged into an all-out confrontation with Iran. After a week of total secrecy following a phone call between Biden and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on 9 October, in which the discussions were largely centred on agreeing on a range of mutually acceptable targets, Netanyahu’s office issued a statement conveying: “We listen to the American government’s thoughts, but will make our final decisions based on Israel’s national security needs.” This statement was in response to a Washington Post story highlighting that Netanyahu had told Biden during the call that he would limit Israel’s retaliation to military sites.
But while Biden has all along vehemently opposed targeting Iran’s nuclear facilities, he suggested on 3 October that he was engaged in discussions related to striking Iran’s oil facilities, thereby sparking a five per cent surge in oil prices. As a result, Biden scrambled immediately to make a screeching turnabout, remarking: “If I were in their shoes, I would be thinking about other alternatives than striking Iranian oil fields.” Given that the US presidential election is edging ever closer and with the polls indicating a tight race between Vice-President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, it is hardly surprising to see Biden working tirelessly to steer Netanyahu away from targeting Iran’s oil facilities as this would doubtlessly fuel a dramatic surge in oil price, leading to a devastating blow to the US economy and therefore scupper Harris’s prospects of winning the elections.
It is worth noting that Netanyahu’s steadfast determination to fatally undermine all US-led attempts to reach a ceasefire in Gaza or Lebanon has not only aimed to shore up his own political survival by preserving his right-wing government – which would unravel in the event of a ceasefire – but more significantly to deprive Biden’s democratic administration of any major diplomatic achievement in the Middle East, as opposed to Trump’s spectacular breakthrough in normalising Isreal’s relations with United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan. And while it is abundantly clear that Netanyahu would prefer to see Trump in power, particularly given that Trump had – during his presidency – bent over backwards to appease him, yet despite being confident that targeting Iran’s oil facilities would boost Trump’s campaign, Netanyahu would most likely refrain from such action, fearing accusations of meddling in US election.
In a show of defiance, Netanyahu has pressed ahead with his relentless campaign by storming Gaza and then invading Lebanon despite Biden’s growing concern regarding the shockingly unjustifiable huge number of civilian casualties, especially women and children, as well as the woefully inadequate amount of humanitarian aid allowed into Gaza. Clearly, Biden’s refusal to put his money where his mouth is by condemning Netanyahu, let alone threatening to halt weapon shipments, which is what French President Emmanuel Macron has called for – has emboldened Netanyahu.
Netanyahu’s initial reaction to Iran’s attack by forcefully stating that Iran had made a “big mistake” and would “pay for it” has implied a rapid response. However, when it comes to targeting Iran, Netanyahu is acutely aware that he can ill afford to defy Washington, given that Israel has become increasingly dependent, even in its own defence, on the US.
In stark contrast to the grinding war of attrition in Gaza, where Netanyahu has failed to accomplish his central goals of completely dismantling Hamas and returning Israel’s hostages home, in Lebanon, he has undoubtedly been empowered by a series of unimaginable tactical successes culminating in the assassination of Hezbollah’s leader Nasrallah. Surely, this prompted Netanyahu to invade Lebanon, hoping to secure his new strategic goal of compelling Hezbollah to cease its ongoing year-long strikes on northern Israel, thus facilitating the return of thousands of displaced citizens to their homes. And amid the uncontainable sense of euphoria, some leading Israeli politicians have pushed hard for Netanyahu to exploit what they perceived as Iran’s growing vulnerability – due to the weakening of Hezbollah and Hamas – by striking Iran’s nuclear and oil facilities. Yet, such calls have increasingly abated in light of Hezbollah’s remarkably stiff resistance, which has derailed Israel’s attempts to make any meaningful headway, while also striking deeper and more frequently into Israel – including targets such as a military base adjacent to Binyamina and even targeting Netanyahu’s house in Caesarea.
As expected, Netanyahu adamantly refused on 17 October to stop the war in Gaza or Lebanon, even after killing Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’s leader, who was the mastermind behind the 7 October attacks on Israel.
Even though Mohamed Bin Salman (MBS), Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and de facto ruler, has left no doubt that he would prefer to see Trump – who, unlike Biden, had shielded him by suppressing a Central Intelligence Agency report blaming him for ordering the killing of Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 – in power, but he was deeply disheartened when Trump shied away from taking decisive action against Iran, which Riyadh blamed, for an assault in 2019 by the Houthis on its oil facilities. As ever, Trump cited the disastrous implications to the global economy if Iran executes its enduring threat to target Riyadh’s oil fields or the flow of Gulf oil through the Strait of Hormuz as the perfect excuse for inaction. Consequently, in the absence of such wholehearted US support, MBS agreed in March 2023 – albeit grudgingly – to a Chinese-brokered rapprochement with Iran, aiming to not merely break free from the futile and unwinnable war that he waged on Yemen but more significantly to strip Iran of its formidable oil deterrence, therefore pave the way for the US and Israel to target Iran with impunity.
In the eyes of MBS, Israel’s abrupt shift from focusing solely on Hamas to taking on Hezbollah, including taking out its leader, marked an excellent opportunity to spur Biden into not just giving Israel the green light, but also to spearhead the targeting of Iran’s nuclear and oil facilities. To this end, Riyadh signalled on 26 September that it intends to ramp up its oil production in December in what it portrayed as an attempt to retain its share of the market, but, in reality, it is a brazen move designed to not only appease Biden, who has relentlessly called on MBS to curb oil prices in order to ease inflation in the US and hammer Russia’s war machine in Ukraine, but also to underline that there is sufficient oil in the market to offset any reduction in supply in the event of striking Iran. Even with all these extraordinary inducements, Biden-Harris have remained disinterested, as it is clear that any misstep would fatally sabotage Harris’s campaign. Iran meanwhile pulled no punches, bluntly warning Riyadh and Gulf states that opening their airspace or military bases to Israel would amount to an act of war while also activating its oil deterrence by starkly threatening Riyadh that it could not guarantee the safety of its oil facilities. To avoid being plunged into a regional conflagration, Riyadh and the Gulf states have informed Israel that they will not allow it to use their air space and also urged the US to push Israel to carefully calibrate its retaliation.
Both Netanyahu and MBS want Hamas and Hezbollah eradicated. They both want Trump to win the elections, thereby setting the stage for them to normalise their relations. But most crucially, they strive to goad the US into confronting Iran. In practice, they both have faced an insurmountable hurdle: neither Trump, Biden, nor Harris have any appetite to be embroiled in such a daunting conflict.
