The White House declared earlier this week that fears of an all-out war in the Middle East were “exaggerated.” But that was Monday. By Wednesday, it was not quite so clear.
In the volatile, anything-can-happen-at-any-time Middle East, a lot can change in 48 hours. For President Biden, the back-to-back assassinations of a Hezbollah commander in Lebanon and the political leader of Hamas in Iran have once again scrambled the geopolitical equation and revised the risk assessment.
Now a grudging lame-duck without an election campaign of his own to run, Mr. Biden had hoped to use his remaining time in office to finally bring an end to the war in Gaza and perhaps even reach a paradigm-shifting deal with Saudi Arabia and Israel that would transform the region. Neither goal was made any easier by the targeted killings of the past couple days, at least not in the short term.
But Mr. Biden’s team vowed on Wednesday not to give up. A team of American negotiators in Rome continued to pursue a cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas while another team of American envoys met officials in Saudi Arabia to discuss regional tensions. U.S. officials anticipate that Hezbollah and Iran may attack Israel in response to the two assassinations, but they hope to keep the spiral of violence from escalating beyond limited strikes and to salvage the cease-fire talks after the dust settles.
“These reports over the last 24, 48 hours, certainly don’t help with the temperature going down, I’m not going to be Pollyannaish about it,” said John F. Kirby, a national security spokesman for the White House. “We’re obviously concerned about escalation,” he added, even while pursuing a cease-fire. “When you have events, dramatic events, violent events, caused by whatever actors, it certainly doesn’t make the task of achieving that outcome any easier.” But, he said, “we still believe there’s a viable process.”
Biden administration officials said they were not informed in advance of the operation targeting Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas based in Qatar, who was killed in an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps guesthouse in Tehran where he was staying after attending the inauguration of President Masoud Pezeshkian of Iran.
Top Pentagon and military officials were stunned by the assassination, particularly the decision to order it in the Iranian capital, a move that makes it harder for Iran not to retaliate. But one senior U.S. military officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic matters, said that while Iran must be embarrassed by the extraordinary security lapse, it may also be fearful of engaging in a full-scale war with Israel.
The assassination of Mr. Haniyeh came less than a day after a strike in a suburb of Beirut killed Fuad Shukr, a Hezbollah commander, in retaliation for an attack over the weekend in an Israeli-controlled town that killed 12 children and teenagers. Israel publicly claimed responsibility for the Hezbollah attack while not confirming its involvement in the killing of Mr. Haniyeh, although U.S. officials privately acknowledged that it had been carried out by the Israelis.
“Conventional wisdom last week was that a hostage deal was likely and a war in the north was not,” said Michael Koplow, chief policy officer for the Israel Policy Forum, a research and educational group that favors a two-state solution. “All of this just demonstrates for the umpteenth time how unpredictable events are and how quickly assessments go out the window.”
Mr. Koplow, writing on social media, said Israel had no choice but to take any opportunity that presented itself to kill Mr. Haniyeh, whose Hamas organization killed 1,200 in the Oct. 7 attack on Israel. “The mistake here isn’t killing Haniyeh,” he said, “but having missed opportunities for a hostage deal, which now becomes even more unlikely.”
Mr. Haniyeh was among the Hamas negotiators in the cease-fire talks, but the major decision maker has been Yahya Sinwar, the group’s commander believed to be hiding in Gaza. He and Mr. Haniyeh were seen as antagonists within Hamas and so Mr. Sinwar may not be mourning all that much, analysts said, but he still may feel compelled to resist a deal in the immediate future.
“What was already a convoluted negotiation and decision-making process among Hamas leaders abroad and in Gaza will now be that much more complicated,” said Natan Sachs, the director of the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. “It still remains the key to the Biden administration’s broader hopes to stabilize the situation, and as such will likely remain a central goal, despite the longer odds.”
Indeed, administration officials noted that the cease-fire negotiations had continued despite previous Israeli strikes against Hamas commanders, including one targeting Muhammad Deif, the shadowy leader of Hamas’s military wing, just two and a half weeks ago.
Robert Satloff, executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said such assassinations are actually in keeping the Biden administration’s pressure on Israel to favor targeted strikes against Hamas leaders instead of wide-scale military operations that inflict civilian casualties.
“In a certain way, this is exactly what the U.S. has been urging Israel to do,” he said. “That’s one reason why you’re not hearing too many people in the administration being critical of this.”
And while it may unsettle the talks, Mr. Satloff argued that it could make it easier for Mr. Netanyahu to make an agreement halting the war. “Maybe this is too hopeful a way to look at it, but if I wanted to close the cease-fire deal, this is exactly what I would want to do,” he said. “I would want to burnish my credentials as a tough son of a bitch.”
“It certainly does now give him more room to maneuver on that front,” Mr. Satloff added. “The question now is will the other side let him play this game or will they escalate. I’m not so sure that Sinwar is upset that Haniyeh is pushing up daisies. They were rivals, they did not see eye to eye. They may do some stuff but I’m not sure this is going to change Sinwar’s calculus.”
Mr. Biden has been intent on avoiding a regional war since the Oct. 7 attack and managed to avert one in April after Iran fired about 300 missiles and drones against Israel in retaliation for its assassination of an Iranian commander. U.S. forces helped ensure that nearly all of the missiles and drones were intercepted and Mr. Biden encouraged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel to leave it at that. “Take the win,” Mr. Biden told him.
Now Mr. Biden faces another escalation scenario, even as he passes the baton to Vice President Kamala Harris to become the Democratic presidential nominee.
“The last thing the Biden administration or the putative Democratic nominee needs right now, with an election less than 100 days away, is getting sucked into or failing to manage a major and messy regional escalation,” said Aaron David Miller, a former Middle East peace negotiator now at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
“It will be difficult, if not impossible, for Biden to shape, let alone control, Iranian or Hezbollah responses,” Mr. Miller added. “Assuming neither wants a full-scale war, Biden might have more success in influencing Israeli reaction once Iran and Hezbollah respond.”
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