Blood And Fire Across the Middle East This April Evening

Damn. While I'd been busy writing a previous article, it looks like the War between Israel and Hamas expanded to include Iran sending missiles and drones to strike targets in Israel (via Becky Sullivan at NPR):

Air raid sirens sounded across Israel and the occupied West Bank and Israeli officials urged people to seek shelter after Iran launched dozens of drones toward Israel late Saturday night in an attack that marked a major escalation of conflict in the Middle East.

Iran had vowed to retaliate after an airstrike on an Iranian consulate in Syria earlier this month killed seven Iranian military officials. It is the first time that Iran has launched an attack on Israel from Iranian soil, Israeli officials said. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said the attack also included missiles.

There was already international outrage that Israel struck a foreign embassy, but this is Netanyahu we're talking about: Any excuse to expand the war so he can stay in power:

In a Saturday night address to Israelis, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that his country was ready for "any scenario, both defensively and offensively."

"We have determined a clear principle: Whoever harms us, we will harm them. We will defend ourselves against any threat and will do so level-headedly and with determination," Netanyahu said.

Caught in the middle of all this was the United States, bound by treaty and historical obligations to defend Israel. While our military in the region responded by shooting down as many of the drones and missiles as possible to reduce civilian targets, there now comes the dread that we're getting caught in an escalating cycle of retaliation between two sides: Israel backed by the U.S. and European allies vs. Hamas and Hezbollah backed by Iran... and Russia.

It's pretty clear that Russia and Iran are closely tied: Russia is relying on Iranian drone manufacturing to supply the ongoing bombardment of civilian targets in Ukraine. It's also clear - once you step back and look at the bigger picture of the global chaos all this fighting in Gaza and Israel generates - that the ones who profit most in any escalation of hostilities between Israel and Iran are Putin and his lackeys (both in Russia and here in the United States).

I've argued before against any American involvement in a war against Iran. The dynamics were different then: The reason to avoid it now revolves around how we dare not get suckered into a fight that can distract us from aiding Ukraine.

If Biden is smart enough, if he can see the bigger picture here - that the real threat remains PUTIN, and that we need to bolster aid to Ukraine - then we can hope that the United States will play a more moderating conciliatory role in the coming days. Biden needs to - with whatever force and influence we've got left - rein in Netanyahu's warmongering here and now, and end the human rights abuses in Gaza and the West Bank to signal Iran to step back on their saber-rattling (the Ayatollahs should worry about engaging in a fight that could trigger political protests at home).

Biden may try to use the moment to bring Republicans over to his side on providing aid to Israel - which he and the Democrats are tying to aid for Ukraine and Taiwan - but given how too many of trump's allies - along with trump himself - are already Putin's puppets, that's unlikely to happen. 

As an aside in one of those grand ironies: If Biden tries to get authorization from Congress to expand our military's efforts against Iran (and Russia), those same Republicans could vote against it out of fear that Biden will win over 2024 voters as a war-time leader, and thus prevent the U.S. from getting dragged into another Middle East quagmire.

All in all, it's another complete mess where the simplest solution is to get Hamas and Hezbollah and Israeli Right Wingers to STOP KILLING EACH OTHER SO THAT NORMAL ISRAELIS AND PALESTINIANS COULD JUST GET ON WITH THEIR LIVES, THAT WOULD BE GRAND AND DANDY. 

(deep inhale)

In the meantime, we can hope that Biden's diplomacy works its way through the narrowest of paths to a solution of some kind that doesn't involve nuking half of everything between Cairo to Tehran.

Good luck.