Biden administration officials are drawing up plans for the US response to the possible transformation of the Gaza war into a broader and more protracted regional conflict, Politico reports.
Four officials, on condition of anonymity, described internal conversations about scenarios that could potentially draw the US into a new war in the Middle East. Three said the military is drawing up plans for a retaliatory strike against Iranian-backed Houthi militants who have been attacking commercial ships in the Red Sea. That includes previously proposed strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen, one official explained.
The US has been urging Tehran behind the scenes for months to persuade its proxies to reduce their attacks. But officials say there is no sign that the groups have begun to scale back their attacks. There are fears that the violence will only increase in the coming days.
It’s an escalation that could leave President Joe Biden even more deeply embroiled in Middle East affairs, at a time when he should be focusing on US domestic issues as the 2024 campaign season begins.
Officials say the likelihood of a wider conflict is growing after a series of clashes in Iraq, Lebanon and Iran over the past few days. Some White House officials are now convinced that the war in the Gaza Strip has officially moved well beyond the Strip’s borders. It’s a scenario the US has been trying to avoid for months.
Biden pledged to support Ukraine “for as long as it takes,” while firmly backing Israel. At the same time, former President Donald Trump, Biden’s most likely Republican rival, boasted that he could end the war in Ukraine in a matter of hours and argued that the US should take a position of non-interference in Israel’s fight against Hamas.
Justin Logan, director of defence and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, said:
Trump will campaign on a ‘remember the glory days’ message, arguing that Russia wouldn’t be in Ukraine, Israel wouldn’t have been attacked, and China wouldn’t be leaning into Taiwan had he been in charge.
A November Quinnipiac poll found that 84 percent of Americans are either very or somewhat concerned that the United States could be drawn into the Middle East conflict. Each month, more and more Americans fear that the Biden administration is offering too much material support to Ukraine.
But as the campaign season draws closer, the administration is increasingly forced to address hot-button issues in the Middle East.
Houthi rebels attacked a commercial cargo ship over the weekend, forcing US Navy helicopters to attack and sink three of their boats. On Tuesday, Hamas accused Israel of killing a top commander in Beirut.
Dozens of people were killed on Wednesday in a series of explosions at the grave of Qasem Soleimani, an Iranian military commander killed in a US drone strike in 2020. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack.
Tensions in the region escalated Thursday after the Biden administration launched a drone strike on Baghdad that killed Iranian-backed militia leader Mushtaq Taleb al-Saidi, or Abu Taqwa.
One result of the president’s meeting on the first day of the New Year with his national security team was a joint statement issued simultaneously by the US and a dozen of its allies warning that the Houthis would face “consequences” if they continued to “threaten lives” and disrupt trade flows in the Red Sea, a senior official stated.
Another official said the US has been concerned for weeks about the escalating war in Gaza and that there was no indication that threats to US troops overseas had escalated in recent days.
There are other signs, however, that the administration is concerned about those threats growing. After Wednesday’s attack in Iran, administration officials, from the Pentagon to the State Department to intelligence agencies, began assessing how Iran or its proxy forces in the Middle East could directly attack the United States or its allies in the region.
There are fears among the highest echelons of the administration that violence in the region will only escalate and that Washington will eventually have to intervene. Of particular concern is the possibility of an escalation of conflict in the Red Sea. Attacks by the Houthis on merchant ships there prompted the US last month to announce a new international maritime coalition to deter those attacks.
The coalition, which now includes more than 20 countries, has allowed about 1,500 merchant ships to pass safely through those waters since operations began on December 18, Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of US 5th Fleet, reported.
However, as of Thursday, there had been 25 attacks on commercial ships transiting the southern Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, Cooper reported.
The Houthi attacks have already forced major shipping companies, which represent a significant part of the international maritime economy, to reroute their ships, causing additional costs and delays.
And there is a persistent fear that violence in the Gaza Strip could spread to the West Bank and Lebanon. Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Israel are already exchanging fire on the border, and there have been reports of Israeli settlers attacking Palestinians in the West Bank. Those fears may be heightened after Israel’s alleged assassination of a Hamas leader in Lebanon on Tuesday
Mick Mulroy, a former Marine, CIA officer and Pentagon official under Trump, claimed:
Although the US has been trying to avoid having the war in Gaza from turning into a regional one, ultimately that decision is not entirely up to us. The signs are blinking red for this to erupt into a regional war.
