America rediscovers the Middle East through Israel's war on Gaza

It is almost as if this emergency management is more in the comfort zone of America when it comes to the Middle East, as opposed to a more strategic, proactive role.

President Biden sent more military assets and his top diplomat, Antony Blinken, to the region in the days after the attack, and he requested supplemental funding for additional military aid to Israel.  Biden himself travelled into the warzone that Israel had become to show his support for Israel's self-defence. 

A meeting planned in Jordan with King Abdullah, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi was cancelled after controversy about a much-debated attack on a hospital in Gaza.

In the first two weeks of this new Middle East war, the Biden administration set five goals in its policy:

• Support Israel's self-defence and objective of eliminating threats posed by Hamas and other groups
• Secure the safe return of hostages and American citizens trapped in Gaza;
• Prevent a wider regional war; and
• Protect civilians and respond to a growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
• Maintain strong working relationships with Arab countries and others involved in managing the fallout and planning for the future. 

In seeking progress on each of these five fronts, the Biden administration is already seeing tensions between the tactics it is using to achieve progress towards each of these five goals. 

One essential task in navigating this crisis moment is reconciling tensions that exist or may emerge in trying to achieve outcomes. 

For example, US support for Israel's military campaign against Gaza is already making the goal of protecting civilians, delivering humanitarian aid, and maintaining good relations with Arab partners more challenging.  

Several of America's closest Arab partners have staked out a position calling for a ceasefire or de-escalation, which the Biden administration and Israel see as at odds with the goal of eliminating threats posed by Hamas. 

In backing Israel's right to self-defence and military actions to reduce and eliminate threats posed by Hamas, the Biden administration has asked for an additional $14bn in aid to Israel as part of a wider $105bn package for more support to Ukraine and other national security priorities.

The support for Israel includes $10bn for air and missile defence support and replenishment of US weapons stocks being drawn down to support Israel. 

Another example of some tension in trying to achieve these goals is one that was seen in weeks two and three of the conflict – the goal of achieving the release of more than 200 hostages was directly at odds with the military campaign designed to eradicate the immediate threat posed by Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other groups repeatedly launching missiles into Israel. 

Israel may have slowed its anticipated ground offensive to buy more time for hostage negotiations led by Qatar and other regional interlocutors. 

But perhaps the most consequential tension that exists is between supporting Israel's military actions in its self-defence and preventing a wider regional war. 

In the early days of the conflict, Iran and its network of partners across the region conducted strikes against Israel and the United States.  Iran's axis thus far has mostly exempted America's Arab partners from these strikes, and both the United States and Israel have responded in kind.

But one bigger risk for the region is one that sees the fire that's burning in one corner of the region, Israel and Gaza, spreading to other parts of the region. 

Perhaps one of the biggest blocks to a wider regional escalation is the ongoing conversations between Arab Gulf countries and Iran, but it remains unclear at this moment whether this conflict can remain contained. 

For now, events in the region are driving US policy responses, not politics at home. 

America remains sharply divided along partisan lines on most issues these days, as the tribal or sectarian mindset that has come to dominate US politics for several years now maintains a grip. 

It's still early in this Middle East war, but 71% of Americans told YouGov/The Economist that protecting Israel was a very or somewhat important US policy goal. And Quinnipiac University's Oct. 12-16 survey found that 76% of registered voters thought supporting Israel was in the US national interest. 

How voters evaluate the Biden administration's actions thus far is heavily linked to partisan affiliation, with Democrats offering stronger assessments of Biden's performance than Republicans. 

None of this is surprising, and it is also unlikely to determine the trajectory of US policy as much as events will.

But in such a volatile and uncertain environment in the Middle East today, these policy goals and domestic political dynamics could be upended at a moment's notice.

How does this end? 

America's latest rediscovery of the Middle East and its geostrategic importance is one of the most complicated tests it has faced in recent years.  Unlike the war that began in 2014 to defeat the Islamic State or the 1991 war to remove Saddam Hussein's Iraq from Kuwait, the United States will struggle to build and maintain a unified regional coalition to advance towards the five main goals it has set for itself. 

These struggles are mostly due to the vastly changed dynamics in the region, with more countries operating assertively in their own self-interest and defining their foreign policy agendas less in relation to outside power and more linked to their immediate environment.  Gone are the days when the United States could wave a magic wand, if it ever could, to get Middle East partners to follow its lead.

Adding to the complexities is the fact that this war is centred on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a conflict that has deep emotional resonance across the region with leaders and the people as well. 

In recent years, some US leaders and counterparts in the region operated as if they could avert their eyes away from the ongoing simmering crisis on the Israeli-Palestinian front, and some thought they could just sweep these dynamics under the rug. 

This latest war serves as a reminder that the big visions of a region that is safer, more integrated and prosperous will never be achieved without addressing the plight of millions of Palestinians. 

The war – particularly the initial vicious attacks and kidnapping of civilians but also the images of children killed by bombings from the air – serves as a vivid reminder to everyone about the need to recenter the humanity of Palestinians and Israelis alike. 

Broader questions loom, including what will happen with the Islamic Republic of Iran, which continues to play a role that undermines broader regional security. 

But as the war ensues, it is important to keep in mind that wars have an unpredictable way of shifting political dynamics in a society.  When the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, it did so in such a way that failed to account for how the military operations would remake power dynamics inside of that country. 

By eliminating a dictator who was nominally a Sunni Muslim in a Shia-majority country with millions of non-Arab Kurds, America was doing many things unwittingly, including affecting the politics of that country in complicated ways that defy simplistic categories of Shia-Sunni and Arab-Kurds divides. 

Similarly, Israel's military actions in Gaza will have a political effect inside of Palestinian society, along with devastating physical and social costs.  Those military actions are already having reverberations across the region, and if the war expands further, it will have even wider political ramifications, including inside of Israel's own political system. 

In asking the question of how this conflict ends, policy planners and technocrats often look to answers or solutions that never fully account for the shifts in power and politics brought by war. 

They aim to talk about what security forces should be set up to maintain law and order, or how a new governing body can be established, or a new economic model.  But war brings with it something even more elemental and foundational, and how this all ends will depend on how it unfolds.  

A big storm is just hitting, and it seems to be growing stronger.