The Bottom Line: Are the US and Israel creating a ‘new world order’ in the Middle East?

Last week, CIP Executive Vice President Matt Duss published “Joe Biden Chose This Catastrophic Path Every Step of the Way” in the New Republic , offering a clear indictment of how specific US policy choices made in response to the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas on Israel have led to unrelenting tragedy in Gaza and Israel’s expanded war with its neighbors. 

On Al Jazeera’s The Bottom Line, host Steve Clemons interviewed Duss about the piece, about the response of Middle Eastern autocracies, and about what US support for Israel’s war means in terms of democratic politics and the 2024 elections.

Here’s Matt Duss on the disconnect between Biden’s language and actions:

We have a policy and this goes back a long time, but it’s far worse now. By upholding Israeli impunity and essentially enforcing Palestinian homelessness, we have affirmed and supported the worst, most hardline elements in all of these societies. And I think that is exactly what we’re seeing now: this idea that Israel is just going to move kind of like Michael Corleone at the end of Godfather and settle all family business. We know how that ultimately ended, okay? It did not end well for Corleone or anyone. But I’ll also say we saw exactly this back in the early 1980s when Israel decided, well we’re going to take out our enemies in Lebanon, tried to take out the PLO leadership and deal with family business then. And what happened ? Well one thing that happened is the rise of Hezbollah. So my concern is what comes next, what is going to arise in the wake of this catastrophe that the United States and Israel have been cooperating to inflict on this region.

On the US reaction to Israel’s geographic expansion of its military offensive:

Over the past few weeks, in the wake of the strikes on Lebanon, the assassination of [Hassan] Nasrallah, the decapitation of Hezbollah’s leadership and the incursion into Lebanon basically after the proposed ceasefire agreement President Biden saying I hope I expect we’re about to get a ceasefire in Lebanon and then Netanyahu said nope, gonna kill all of Hezbollah’s leaders and invade Lebanon instead. 

Since that time, the US posture seems to have changed and basically Biden seems to be just riding this war down like Slim Pickens in Doctor Strangelove. Even the statement that came out, the readout of the call between Netanyahu and Biden made no mention of a ceasefire in Lebanon. They have completely dropped that. 

And I’m really concerned that there does seem to be – there’s clearly a sense in Washington like this sense of exaltation that is just dangerously and terrifyingly reminiscent of the leadup to the Iraq War, this sense that by dint of our enormous power or Israel’s enormous military power, we’re essentially going to reshuffle the deck in the Middle East and kind of rearrange …the security arrangement in the Middle East in a way that’s more beneficial to us. And it’s really kind of staggering for those of us who lived through that. That we would have to relearn this lesson. It will not work. 

Israel clearly has enormous capabilities, they’ve scored a number of very, very impressive tactical victories. I don’t think anyone could deny that. But what we’ve seen year after year, decade after decade in that region is that both the United States and Israel have utterly failed to turn these tactical victories into strategic wins. And that is what we still have yet to see from either the US or Israel is any explanation of how this ends.

Watch Duss on Al Jazeera below