On October 13, Pentagon Press Secretary Pat Ryder announced the authorization of the deployment of a Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery and associated crew of US military personnel to Israel.
In a comment on this in ‘Common Dreams’ titled ‘Alarm as Pentagon confirms deployment of US troops in Israel’ (October 3), Jake Johnson wrote, “The Pentagon has confirmed it has authorized the deployment of an advanced antimissile system and around 100 US troops to Israel.”
As Israel fights on several fronts, an important question that is increasingly being discussed all over the world relates to the extent the USA can get involved in these more directly.
Of course the many sided battles of Israel are made possible to a large extent already by the supply of weapons by the USA and its close allies like Germany (not to mention their strong diplomatic support for Israel) , and the USA’s top leaders have repeatedly affirmed their ‘ironclad’ commitment to the ‘defense’ of Israel, so the continuation of the already strong support of the USA for Israel stands confirmed.
The question thus is only of the more direct USA involvement in a wider war of middle-east, particularly if it is fought against Iran, and this is a very important question in terms of the likely massive increase in distress, environment ruin and threats to world peace, economy and stability.
This question must be explored in the context of the long-existing strong relationship between the aggressive elements in the USA and the aggressive elements in Israel.
The aggressive elements in the USA regard the Middle-East region, for economic and strategic reasons, as a very important region over which the USA control must be strong and must be strengthened. How to ensure this control with the help of what allies has been changing (at one time Iran under the Shah was regarding as a very important ally) in some respects but what has remained constant throughout has been that the USA has regarded Israel as the most important and trusted ally and partner in the task of ensuring strong USA influence and control in the Middle-East region.
This may be a wrong policy (as several critics within the USA also say) or a right policy from the perspective of USA interests, but let us face it, this is the long accepted policy of aggressive elements of USA policy which has been accepted with more or less continuity by the leading US policy makers, something which has been facilitated greatly by the very strong Israeli lobby in the USA.
Not let us consider the policy of the aggressive elements within Israel towards the USA. The aggressive elements within Israel (as opposed to the once significant but now very diminished constituency of peace within Israel) have favored a policy of hostility towards the Palestinians and towards a justice-based, sincere two-state solution, while supporting the achievement of greater Israel (with extended territory) to the extent that they can get away with this (they have been on the lookout for opportunities for this).
In recent years (and broadly both the Biden and the Trump administrations of 2016-24 have agreed on this) the convergence of this thinking of Israel and the USA have led to the following strategy—secure Israel’s friendly or at least tolerable relations with some important Arab countries (particularly through Abraham Accord type of arrangements), while isolating Iran, its axis of resistance and the Palestinians.
If this was the broad strategy of the USA and Israel for some years, let us see what changed with the October 7 attack.
Some analysts have argued that the Hamas and its partners attacked Israel on October 7, 2023 with the explicit aim of thwarting the success of this US-Israel strategy of further extending Abraham Accord type arrangements, among others with Saudi Arabia.
This line of reasoning goes something like this– such an attack on Israel would bring a big Israeli retaliation and as Gaza would face high levels of repression, it would not be possible for more Arab countries to go ahead with Abraham Accord type agreements amidst all this violence against the Palestinians.
There are several problems with this line of reasoning. Given an understanding of how extremely aggressive the present Israeli regime led by Netanyahu is, if the Hamas attacked with the purpose of inviting a very big counter-attack of Israel on Gaza, then clearly the partial responsibility of Hamas in the massive destruction seen in Gaza now must also be accepted.
Surely there are less destructive means available for advancing the interests of one’s own people.
If it is true –and there is a big if—that Hamas planned the October 7 attack mainly with the aim of disrupting the moving forward of the Abraham Accords process, then this was a hugely flawed decision which on the whole has been very harmful for the people of Gaza. To call this a success of Hamas is absurd for anyone with sincere commitment to peace.
What is more likely is that the most aggressive elements within Israel saw the October 7 attack as something which gave them an opportunity to increase their aggression much more. The evidence that has been accumulating of Israel ignoring various warnings of October 7 attack and keeping security very lax on the day of the attack must be seen in this context.
Another factor that cannot be ignored relates to the initiatives of China to bring Iran and Saudi Arabia closer to each other and their initially encouraging and positive response to this, something which was not acceptable to the USA and Israel which strongly prefer increasing isolation of Iran and the axis of resistance related to Iran.
All these factors are mentioned here as these are relevant to the basic question with which we started—whether the USA is likely to get more directly involved in a wider war in the middle-east?
What is clearly evident is that Israel led by Netanyahu sees an opportunity in the present situation for advancing the objectives of Greater Israel as well as for inflicting a big blow to Iran with the more direct help of the USA. The strong Israeli lobby in the USA is helping to push what Netanyahu and aggressive elements of Israel want. However Israel will also have to weigh in the heavy costs of this in the middle of growing economic and military problems. When aggressive elements are calling the shots, often the cautions get ignored and even irrationally aggressive paths get favored. If rational decisions based on Israel’s own interests are made then this war should end as early as possible with permanent ceasefire in Gaza and elsewhere, but aggressive elements in Israel may not see it this way.
Now seeing the situation from the USA side, several prominent US analysts have argued that a wider war with Iran is something the USA does not want at all with elections approaching. On the other hand if you look at the situation from a longer term perspective in which the convergence of aggressive elements of USA and Israel has developed, then a more direct involvement of the USA in a wider middle-east war cannot be ruled out, particularly if Israel persists in taking escalatory actions aimed at achieving this.
If the USA does get more directly involved, then the possibilities of the higher involvement of other big powers on the side of Iran will also have to be examined, further increasing world level risks to peace, economy and environment to unacceptably high levels ( in addition to the unacceptably high risks that already exist on the Ukraine front).
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As the risks are so extremely high, no efforts should be spared to increase the efforts for peace and non-escalation as much as possible, and in this context the role and responsibility of all those committed to peace in western countries, especially the USA, are particularly high. The peace movement must really press all buttons now to advance the peace agenda in a thoughtful and careful way.
Bharat Dogra is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Protecting Earth for Children, Planet in Peril, Man over Machine and A Day in 2071.
