Diplomatically, Joe Biden is walking on a tightrope. Supporting Israel while preventing Benjamin Netanyahu from taking revenge on Iran: this is the dilemma facing the American president.
By coming to the defense of Israel in the face of Iran’s attack on the night from Saturday to Sunday, Joe Biden walked his words. US forces helped destroy “dozens” of drones and missiles. This is the first time that an American president has been called upon to defend Israel directly, it was argued in Washington.
Biden ‘does not want an extended war with Iran’
The shock of Iran’s first direct attack on the Jewish state having passed, the United States now fears an Israeli response with the risk of provoking a dangerous spiral in the Middle East, against a backdrop of war in Gaza.
Washington is therefore trying to calm things down. “The president has been clear: we do not want an escalation. We do not want an extended war with Iran,” declared White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby on Sunday.
The United States also does not intend to participate in possible Israeli reprisals, assures a senior American official speaking on condition of anonymity. And, according to him, Israel “is not seeking a significant escalation with Iran.”
For Washington, Tehran has had its revenge
The Democratic president brought his message directly during a telephone interview Saturday evening. He “clearly told the (Israeli) Prime Minister that we must carefully and strategically weigh the risks of escalation” in order to avoid a regional war, according to the senior American official.
Washington’s calculation appears to be that Tehran got what it wanted with a show of force in retaliation for the strike, attributed to Israel, on its consulate in Damascus on April 1. And Israel has spectacularly demonstrated its defensive power, with 99% of Iranian projectiles intercepted.
OUR FILE ON THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT
Since the unprecedented Hamas attack on October 7 then the Israeli offensive which ravaged the Gaza Strip, Joe Biden has been trying to avoid a regional war, fearing being drawn directly into a conflict in the Middle East. The American president thus finds himself in a delicate position: increasingly critical of Benjamin Netanyahu, with whom he maintains difficult relations, he must nevertheless assure him of his full support.
Joe Biden is also under pressure in the middle of the presidential campaign in the United States, attacked on his left in the face of the humanitarian disaster in Gaza as well as on his right, for his supposed “weakness”, as his Republican rival Donald Trump asserts. “If Joe Biden encourages the Israelis not to retaliate at all then it is a shame for the United States,” John Bolton, former adviser to Donald Trump, said on CNN on Sunday, calling on the contrary to Israel to “ destroy Iran’s nuclear program.