Biden Is Letting Netanyahu Lead The U.S. Into Regional War

By sending troops and the powerful THAAD anti-missile system to Israel, the US is only fueling escalation in the Middle East.

By Trita Parsi, Zeteo

President Joe Biden’s decision to deploy the THAAD advanced missile defense system to Israel, along with roughly 100 US service members, reinforces an undeniable reality: Israel is the country most likely to drag the US into another unnecessary war in the Middle East – and Biden is the president most likely to oblige Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war wishes.

After a year of Netanyahu repeatedly violating Biden’s ostensive red lines and acting in contradiction to the US president’s expressed wishes, there is little to suggest that Biden has seriously tried to stop Israel’s carnage in Gaza or sought to prevent Netanyahu from broadening the war. Rather, Biden’s strategy appears to have been to pace Israel’s escalations while softening its edges to avoid the inevitable international outcry and push back from becoming prohibitive. Biden is managing Israel’s war rather than ending it.

a thaad missile system launches a rocket

It is against this backdrop that Biden’s decision to deploy US troops and THAAD missiles in Israel is best understood. While Biden has claimed opposition to further escalation in the region, his strategy has been to solely pressure and deter the so-called “Axis of Resistance” – Iran, Hezbollah, the Houthis, Iraqi and Syrian militias, and Hamas – from taking escalatory steps while actively reducing the cost for Israel to widen the war.

Every time Netanyahu escalates the conflict – such as by striking the consular section of the Iranian embassy in Damascus, assassinating Hamas’ political head in Tehran on the day of the new Iranian president’s inauguration, or invading Lebanon – Biden rushes to defend Israel from the consequences of its own escalation. By that, Biden reduces the risk and cost of widening the war to Israel while increasing the risk and cost to the US.

Had Biden refrained from adding additional defensive capabilities to Israel after it needlessly intensified the conflict, the cost of escalation would have been higher for Israel – perhaps even prohibitive. Israel would have thought twice. But because Israel knows that Biden will come to its defense every time it ups the ante, Netanyahu has few reasons not to escalate. This helps explain the steady pace of Israeli escalatory steps since October 2023.