Biden approaches limits of influence on Israel

President Joe Biden and his senior aides have urged Israel to avoid direct attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities when it strikes back against Tehran — the latest sign of the limits of the U.S.’ power to prevent all but the most extreme actions by Israel.

After hundreds of Iranian rockets and missiles again rained down on Israel on Tuesday, the Biden administration is settling for limiting Israel’s response rather than discourage it entirely, according to two administration officials. Both were granted anonymity because they weren’t authorized to publicly discuss private conversations.

The directive illustrates the limits of Biden’s waning influence over events in the Middle East and an acknowledgment that he may be unable to stop what his administration has spent a year trying to prevent: regional war.

The last time Israel successfully defended itself against an Iranian attack, in April, Biden urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “take the win” and not escalate the conflict further.

But the dynamics both in the Middle East and Washington have changed dramatically in the last six months.

Iran’s Tuesday attack was larger and closer to Israel’s population centers. It comes after Israel first unleashed a stunning intelligence operation that crippled Iran’s top militant proxy, Hezbollah, and then fought with the terror group across the border in Lebanon. And it took place with Biden now a lame duck, trying to salvage a pair of Middle East cease-fire deals while hawkish Republicans call for action against Tehran and the Middle East threatens to overwhelm the election between his chosen successor, Vice President Kamala Harris, and Donald Trump.

Israel made clear that it would respond forcefully to Iran. Netanyahu in a public address shortly after the attack said Tehran would “pay for it,” adding, “We will stand by the rule we established: Whoever attacks, we will attack them.”

Biden on Wednesday told reporters that he did not support an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear sites, though he didn’t provide specifics on conversations with Israel on that risk.

“We’ll be discussing with the Israelis what they’re going to do, but [the Group of 7 countries] agree that they have a right to respond, but they should respond in proportion,” Biden said.

Biden added that sanctions would be imposed on Iran. Aides said that the U.S. was extensively communicating with Israel about a response, which could include a military strike, the officials said. Among the possible options under consideration are strikes on Iran-backed militias or directly on Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces in Yemen or Syria, a second official said. U.S. aides communicated a preference for a strategic but limited retaliation.

But the president may now have far less say in shaping events.

For months, Netanyahu and his government have consistently ignored American counsel as to how to prosecute the war in Gaza against Hamas after the Oct. 7 terror attacks. Biden and his aides were repeatedly frustrated by Israel’s widening war aims within Gaza — with a devastating impact on Palestinian civilians — even at the cost of a deal to free the remaining hostages.

Biden deemed Israel’s response “over the top” and did stop one shipment of American arms to Israel. But even as pressure grew from fellow Democrats to create distance from Netanyahu, Biden’s reflexive instinct was to support Israel despite the swelling humanitarian crisis. As his influence over Netanyahu shrunk, the president’s anger grew. Phone calls between the two men were increasingly turned into shouting matches, according to one of the officials and one other senior official not authorized to discuss private conversations. Biden told confidants that he did not believe his Israeli counterpart wanted a cease-fire deal, arguing that Netanyahu was trying to perpetuate the conflict to save his political future and assist Trump in November’s election, the officials said.

The latest sign of what Biden critics see as the United States’ increasing impotence in the region came last month in the wake of Israel’s devastating detonation of pagers belonging to Hezbollah militants in Lebanon. Netanyahu at first told U.S. officials he supported a pause in fighting with the Lebanon-based militant group, but then roundly rejected the cease-fire proposal once it was made public. And the next day, moments after the prime minister delivered a fiery speech at the United Nations, Israel carried out a missile strike in Beirut that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, and which left the militant group reeling.

“The campaign against Hezbollah has been very effective so far and will likely continue,” said Chuck Freilich, a former Israeli deputy national security adviser. “One question now is whether they will be able to respond more massively and in coordination” with any future Iranian attacks.

On Tuesday, Biden and Harris convened a pair of meetings of their national security team and went public with the intelligence that Iran was preparing an imminent attack on Israel. Members of their team, including Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, spoke to their Israeli counterparts. And U.S. destroyers stationed in the region joined Israel in shooting down the barrage of approximately 200 projectiles.

“We are proud of the actions that we’ve taken alongside Israel to protect and defend Israel,” said national security adviser Jake Sullivan. “We have made clear that there will be consequences — severe consequences — for this attack, and we will work with Israel to make that the case.”

Biden ordered the Pentagon to assist Israel’s Iron Dome and other defense shields in shooting down the Iranian onslaught — an attack that, according to an initial assessment by the Israeli military, left no Israelis dead. That remarkable success echoed what happened in April, when Israel — again bolstered by American firepower — defeated an Iranian rocket barrage launched in retaliation for Israel’s bombing of an Iranian consulate in Damascus.

Then, Biden told Netanyahu to “take the win” and made clear that the United States would not help Israel in any retaliatory strikes against Iran. Ultimately, Israel responded in a somewhat modest fashion — attacking a strategically important military target but not escalating the conflict further.

But the audacity of the new wave of Israeli strikes — the specifics of which were not told to Americans in advance — were matched only by their success.

“Netanyahu is showing much more willingness to take risks and gamble, and he’s feeling very bold, because Israel has significantly weakened [Tehran’s] proxies, and they understand they can see that Iran is in a weaker position,” said Hagar Chemali, a former National Security Council and Treasury Department official in the Obama administration. “I expect a strong response, something that is significant or achieves their own national security objectives.”

Republicans have been relentlessly critical of Biden’s response to the Gaza war, believing that he has been insufficiently supportive of Israel. In the wake of Iran’s attack, many in the GOP ratcheted up the pressure on Biden to help Israel seek revenge.

“This is a moment of choosing for the free world regarding Iran,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) posted on the social media platform X. “This missile attack against Israel should be the breaking point and I would urge the Biden Administration to coordinate an overwhelming response with Israel.”

Trump at a rally Tuesday called the spiraling situation in the Middle East “very close to global catastrophe” and blamed the Biden-Harris administration — and it seemed certain that the fast-moving events in the Middle East would shadow the final days of the presidential campaign.

“The Biden administration, appropriately, is still arguing to prevent a regional war,” said Ret. U.S. Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey. “These are painful days for Israel [and] they have every right to consider every option. But the consequences are hard to gauge. What we know is that these are days of great peril.”