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One of the upsides of Joe Biden making way for Kamala Harris was that he could focus on the presidency. Two months later, there is scant evidence his freed-up schedule has had much effect. In another era, Biden might have had the luxury of taking a long bow as he exits the stage. But the Middle East is on the brink of war and Ukraine is heading into a dangerous winter. Harris’s election prospects and his own legacy are in jeopardy.
This is no time to skirt tough decisions. Yet that is precisely what Biden is doing. Of these, the most urgent is the rising spectre of a full-blown war between Israel and Hizbollah. Biden’s response to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s self-declared pre-emptive strikes on Hizbollah has so far followed the same course as on Gaza. Biden believes that the closer he is to Israel, the more leverage he has over what it does. There is no evidence that this works with Netanyahu.
Indeed, Biden’s actions in the 11 and a half months since the October 7 Hamas slaughter of 1,200 Israelis have followed a depressingly familiar pattern. Biden provides Israel with whatever weapons and international support it needs; Netanyahu duly ignores Biden’s efforts to broker a ceasefire or modify the Israel Defense Forces’ military tactics.
The definition of insanity attributed to Albert Einstein is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Nobody thinks Biden is insane. But he is stuck in a groove that is predictably counter-productive. The point of a quid pro quo is that you get something in return. With Netanyahu, Biden seems trapped in a perpetual quid pro nihilo (something for nothing).
Biden’s latest questionable bet is to accept Netanyahu’s argument that Israel needs to “escalate to de-escalate” in southern Lebanon. In plain English that means that the tougher Israel’s military hits on Hizbollah in the days ahead, the more likely the Iran-backed group will climb down. But Hizbollah has a big arsenal, including an estimated 200,000 rockets. It is the most powerful non-state force in the world. The higher Lebanon’s civilian death toll, the more pressure there will be on Hizbollah to retaliate at scale, even if that risks eventual suicide.
Yet Biden is sticking to Plan A. On Monday he called for Israeli restraint while at the same time announcing he was beefing up the US military presence in the Middle East. The latter provides Israel with an extra layer of protection to ignore Biden’s exhortations. From Harris’s point of view, Netanyahu’s brinkmanship is ominous. Should Israel occupy a strip of southern Lebanon to create a buffer zone against the Hizbollah threat — as some around Netanyahu are urging — it could change the US electoral weather. Higher oil prices would hit US consumer sentiment, undoing some of the stimulative effect of last week’s half a percentage point rate cut by the US Federal Reserve.
It goes without saying that Donald Trump has an interest in egging Netanyahu on. The Israeli leader has likewise made little secret of his wish for a Republican victory. How far would Netanyahu go to help Trump? We will find out in the coming weeks. Biden’s prevarications on Ukraine are less consequential for what happens on November 5. But a Trump victory could be existential for Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin thus also has an interest in a Trump victory, though he has trolled the media by saying that he backs Harris.
Biden’s defence of Ukraine and Nato’s expansion is his most prized foreign policy legacy. His aim has been to give Ukraine the tools to defend itself without starting the third world war. But Ukraine cannot hold the line unless it is given the means to strike inside Russian territory. This Biden is loath to provide. As one analyst recently said, Ukraine can shoot down some of the incoming arrows but cannot target the archer. A growing number of US allies, led by Poland and the UK, are urging Biden to give Ukraine permission to use US-supplied artillery to strike inside Russian territory. But Biden is terrified this would cross Putin’s nuclear red lines. As a result, Ukraine is fighting a war against the world’s second-largest military at a severe handicap. Even if Harris wins, it would be January at the earliest before the US would change its stance.
Most political careers end not with a bang but a whimper, to borrow from TS Eliot. If war breaks out in the Middle East and Trump wins, Biden’s storied half a century in US public life will end with both a bang and a whimper. That is surely not the legacy he wants.