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middle east war
Israel Launches Massive Attack on Lebanon, Heightening Fears of All-Out War
"Looks like Israel is now escalating in Lebanon in a major way in the hopes of kicking off a major war in the north that has thus far been kept to more limited exchanges," warned one analyst.
Aug 25, 2024
Israel's military deployed around 100 fighter jets to launch a massive bombing campaign in southern Lebanon on Sunday, endangering tens of thousands of civilians and heightening the chances of an all-out regional war.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) characterized the wave of airstrikes as an effort to preemptively "remove the threat" posed by a purportedly imminent Hezbollah attack, but observers argued the Israeli bombing marked a serious escalation that could further undermine hopes of a cease-fire deal in Gaza.
"Looks like Israel is now escalating in Lebanon in a major way in the hopes of kicking off a major war in the north that has thus far been kept to more limited exchanges," wrote political analyst Yousef Munayyer. "Just as negotiations for a cease-fire were reportedly advancing."
Hezbollah said Sunday that it had fired hundreds of drones and rockets at Israeli military sites in retaliation for the assassination of one of the group's senior commanders last month. Hezbollah said the "first phase" of its response was complete and rejected the IDF's claim that it preempted the group's retaliatory action.
The Associated Pressreported that "by mid-morning, it appeared that the exchange had ended, with both sides saying they had only aimed at military targets."
"At least three people were killed in the strikes on Lebanon," AP noted, "while there were no reports of casualties in Israel."
Israel Katz, the Israeli foreign minister, wrote on social media following the attack on Lebanon that he "sent a direct message to dozens of foreign ministers worldwide, urging them to support Israel against the Iranian axis of evil and its proxies, led by Hezbollah."
Sunday's dangerous back-and-forth, described by one newspaper as the two sides' biggest exchange of fire since the 2006 war, further intensified concerns that the region is moving toward the precipice of an all-out conflict as Israel's U.S.-backed assault on the Gaza Strip continues with no end in sight.
A White House spokesperson said Sunday that U.S. President Joe Biden is "closely monitoring events in Israel and Lebanon."
"At his direction, senior U.S. officials have been communicating continuously with their Israeli counterparts," the spokesperson said. "We will keep supporting Israel's right to defend itself, and we will keep working for regional stability."
One senior U.S. official said Israel did not give the White House advance notice of the Lebanon attack.
Monica Marks, professor of Middle East politics at New York University Abu Dhabi, wrote that the White House's claim to be promoting regional stability "lands like a bad joke" given ongoing U.S. support for Israel's "escalatory acts."
"Lives on the ground are at stake. So are [Democratic presidential nominee Kamala] Harris' chances and Biden's legacy," Marks added. "D.C. is playing Middle East roulette."
Israel's bombardment of Lebanon came after another horrific day in the Gaza Strip, where the IDF killed dozens of Palestinians in southern Gaza. "Among the dead," according to the AP, "were 11 members of a family, including two children, after an airstrike hit their home in Khan Younis."
The atrocities preceded a fresh round of high-level cease-fire talks, negotiations that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly thwarted with hardline demands.
The Washington Postreported Saturday that "Israel and Hamas were sending senior-level delegations to Cairo this weekend as U.S., Qatari, and Egyptian mediators prepared for a high-stakes summit they hope will break the deadlock in negotiations for a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip."
"Hamas officials arrived in the Egyptian capital Saturday, while Israeli media reported that a team led by the head of Mossad, David Barnea, would travel there Sunday," the Post added. "The summit, also on Sunday, will include CIA Director William J. Burns, Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel, and Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani."
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Biden White House Says 'We Don't Want a Wider War.' Analysts Say 'Too Late'
"But the U.S. can snap to its senses, end the Gaza war, and climb down from pointless escalations across the Middle East," said one observer.
Jan 29, 2024
Since October, the United States has bombed Iraq and Syria dozens of times, launched five rounds of airstrikes in Yemen, supplied the Israeli government with more than 10,000 tons of military equipment for its devastating assault on the Gaza Strip, and opposed international efforts to secure a cease-fire in the Palestinian enclave.
Yet Biden administration officials continue to insist that the U.S. is not at war in the Middle East, and is not seeking a broader military conflict in the region.
On Monday, amid reports that the U.S. is weighing how to respond to a deadly drone attack on American servicemembers just inside Jordan's border with Syria—an attack the White House blamed on Iran-backed militia groups—National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said in an appearance on NBC's "Today Show" that "we don't want a wider war with Iran."
"We don't want a wider war in the region," said Kirby, "but we gotta do what we have to do."
The disconnect between the White House's stated intention to avoid a broader conflagration in the Middle East and its escalatory actions has become increasingly stark in recent weeks, with potentially dire consequences for the region.
Phyllis Bennis, director of the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, told Common Dreams that—contrary to Kirby's suggestion—the U.S. is not obligated to continue the tit-for-tat strikes that are fueling the intensifying cycle of violence and risking an all-out war.
"They don't 'gotta do' what they're doing," Bennis wrote in an email. "What they've 'gotta do'—if there's any reality to the claim that they don't want to expand the war in the region or risk war with Iran—is exactly the opposite of what they're now doing."
"That means stop the military provocations," she added. "Withdraw the aircraft carrier groups and destroyers from the area. Stop bombing Iraq and Syria, and withdraw the 2,500 U.S. troops from Iraq (isn't that war officially over?) and the 900 or so U.S. troops from Syria (who are we fighting there, anyway?). Stop bombing Yemen, killing civilians as well as Houthi fighters. And first things first—call for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza."
"The only genuine path to significantly reducing the current spasm of violence in the Middle East is securing an immediate cease-fire in Gaza, pouring cold water on the fire at the heart of this regional inferno."
The attack on American troops in Jordan—reportedly carried out by a drone that was initially mistaken for a U.S. aircraft—immediately set off the drumbeats of war, with Democratic and Republican members of Congress demanding that the Biden administration respond forcefully with strikes inside Iran.
Biden signaled in a statement Sunday that the U.S. will retaliate "at a time and in a manner of our choosing." Kirby declined to say Monday whether the president is weighing strikes within Iran—which has denied involvement in the Jordan attack—but vowed that the U.S. "absolutely will" retaliate.
Analysts and anti-war campaigners warned that a military response would be a potentially catastrophic mistake, further inflaming a conflict that already involves at least 10 countries.
Thanassis Cambanis, director of The Century Foundation's Center for International Research and Policy, argued late Sunday that with the U.S. already "fighting on multiple fronts," it is "too late to avoid regional war."
Unless the U.S. "deescalates immediately" across the region and pressures Israel to stop its war on the Gaza Strip, President Joe Biden "will have ended one war in Afghanistan only to start a bigger one that stretches from Iran to the Suez Canal," Cambanis wrote.
"It's too late for 26,000 dead Gazans," he added. "It's too late to avoid colossal self-harm to America's reputation. But the U.S. can snap to its senses, end the Gaza war, and climb down from pointless escalations across the Middle East."
Stephen Miles, president of Win Without War, also made the case for urgent deescalation efforts, saying in a statement that the attack on U.S. servicemembers in Jordan was "a painful reminder that President Biden's current policy in the Middle East is simply not working."
"The same voices who advocated for never-ending wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, arguing victory was forever just around the corner, now want the American public to believe that the path to peace lies with yet another war in the Middle East—this time with Iran. They were wrong then, and they are wrong now," said Miles. "The only genuine path to significantly reducing the current spasm of violence in the Middle East is securing an immediate cease-fire in Gaza, pouring cold water on the fire at the heart of this regional inferno."
This story has been updated to include additional comment from Phyllis Bennis.
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US Hawks Demand War With Iran After Attack on American Troops in Jordan
"After years of working to block and undermine diplomatic alternatives, these people may be closer than ever to realizing their dream of war with Iran."
Jan 29, 2024
Warhawks in the United States wasted no time agitating for direct military conflict with Iran after a drone attack on a military base just inside Jordan's border with Syria on Sunday killed three American troops and injured dozens more.
Both Republican and Democratic members of Congress called on U.S. President Joe Biden to quickly respond with strikes inside Iran, which denied any connection to Sunday's attack.
"The only answer to these attacks must be devastating military retaliation against Iran's terrorist forces, both in Iran and across the Middle East," said Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), a longtime supporter of war with Iran. "Anything less will confirm Joe Biden as a coward unworthy of being commander-in-chief."
Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) called Iran "an existential threat to the U.S. and our allies in the region" and said Tehran "must be held accountable for the murder of three U.S. soldiers."
That sentiment was echoed by a number of lawmakers, including Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) and Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).
United Against Nuclear Iran, a group chaired by former Sen. Joseph Lieberman, also demanded "a decisive U.S. military response against targets inside Iran."
"The U.S. should attack and destroy Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) military and intelligence targets in Iran, as well as missile and drone bases where the Iranian regime’s proxies are trained," the group said.
"Those who have consistently counseled only violence to address the crisis unleashed on October 7 should be ashamed of the disastrous outcomes they have so far reaped."
Biden claimed in a statement Sunday that "radical Iran-backed militant groups operating in Syria and Iraq" were responsible for Sunday's drone attack, but acknowledged that the U.S. is "still gathering the facts."
"Have no doubt—we will hold all those responsible to account at a time and in a manner [of] our choosing," the president said.
U.S. forces stationed in the Middle East have faced increasingly frequent attacks since Israel launched its large-scale war on the Gaza Strip following the deadly Hamas-led assault on southern Israel on October 7. Sunday marked the first time since October that American troops have been killed in a Middle East attack.
The Biden administration has blamed the attacks on Iran-aligned militias and responded with airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, intensifying concerns that the U.S. is fueling a regionwide conflict. The administration has also launched a series of unauthorized strikes in Yemen in response to Houthi attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea.
Despite the above, the Pentagon continues to insist that the U.S. is "not at war in the Middle East."
Contrary to the growing calls for a military response to attacks on U.S. troops, analysts and progressive lawmakers have argued that the only way to halt the escalating violence in the region is to secure a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, where Israeli forces armed by the U.S. have killed more than 26,000 people in less than four months. The Biden administration has repeatedly stonewalled international efforts to secure a cease-fire.
"I am heartbroken by the loss of the servicemembers killed in Jordan," Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), a U.S. Senate candidate, wrote in a social media post on Sunday. "Like I feared, the violence is spiraling out of control. President Biden must demand a cease-fire in Gaza now."
Jamal Abdi, president of the National Iranian American Council, warned in a statement Sunday that "the U.S. and Iran are now closer to the brink of being pulled into a full-blown regional war by the vortex of violence that was unleashed by Hamas' attack on Israel on October 7th and Israel's assault on Gaza."
"Those who have consistently counseled only violence to address the crisis unleashed on October 7 should be ashamed of the disastrous outcomes they have so far reaped," said Abdi. "We are disgusted by calls for more escalation from opportunists like Senators Lindsey Graham, Tom Cotton, and John Cornyn who are urging yet again for the U.S. to directly attack Iran. After years of working to block and undermine diplomatic alternatives, these people may be closer than ever to realizing their dream of war with Iran."
"President Biden must show leadership and recognize that there is no military solution to this crisis that has only been expanded and prolonged by military escalation and a dearth of diplomacy," he continued. "The president must calibrate his response so as not to condemn the U.S. and region to an intractable war and instead work to end this conflict. The most impactful thing Biden can do to prevent further deaths across the region and prevent a full-blown war is to secure an immediate cease-fire between Israel and Palestine."
Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, similarly argued that "to truly protect our troops and avoid both war and more needless American deaths, Biden should begin withdrawing troops from Iraq and Syria and press Israel for a cease-fire, since its slaughter in Gaza is fueling four fronts that put the U.S. at risk."
"There will be understandable calls for revenge and counterstrikes," Parsi said. "Biden will almost certainly go down that path. Know that this is how America gets dragged into endless war. Retaliations, which in the moment may feel justified by the unacceptable attacks of these militias, put us on a path toward a war that doesn't serve our interests and that we cannot afford—one whose victory we cannot define and whose exit we cannot envision."
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