As Biden’s term comes to an end, Middle East dynamics are looking better for Washington

President Joe Biden has spent much of the past year trying to stem the rising violence in the Middle East — and often failing. As his term draws to a close, the devastation in Gaza and new uncertainty in Syria are eroding some of the geopolitical leverage for Washington — even if Biden’s team was not directly responsible for them.

The main US rival in the region, Iran, has seen its so-called resistance axis devastated in the 14 months since Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people in the deadliest attack on the country in decades . Hamas and Hezbollah – once Iran’s most formidable proxies – have been battling months of Israeli attacks.

Fears that the fighting would spill over into a regional conflict have not yet materialized, and Israel has currently gotten the better of Iran in the countries’ first exchange of direct attacks. Tehran, along with Moscow, proved unable to defend the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria, whose removal had long seemed an unattainable US goal.

There is also growing hope that a ceasefire agreement may finally be reached in Gaza, which would lead to the release of hostages held by Hamas and possibly end civilian suffering.

“We are seeing Russia withdrawing, Iran withdrawing and now we are at the point where military battlefield successes have enabled change in the political processes in both Gaza and Lebanon”, Dana Stroll, Joe Biden Was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Administration, said. for the Middle East from 2021-2023, and is now a Senior Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

For all those changes, the Biden administration has been dogged by accusations that it did not do enough to stop the Israeli campaign, which has killed more than 45,000 Palestinians and 3,000 in Lebanon. And the Biden administration has sometimes struggled to show that any positive developments have been due to its efforts, not theirs.

Instead, the US found its influence limited as powerful regional players took the lead.

It was Israeli forces that carried out strikes against Hamas and Hezbollah, often contrary to White House warnings. In Syria, Turkey backed rebel forces whose offensives forced Assad to flee to Russia, and Israeli attacks have been devastating his regime’s military capabilities.

Brian Catulis said, “The damage Israel has inflicted on Hamas and Hezbollah at approximately the same time as the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria means the Islamic Republic of Iran is at its weakest point since it came to power in 1979.” A former US official and senior fellow at the Washington-based Middle East Institute.

Along the way, Biden’s public calls for restraint were often ignored.

The administration has so far failed to reach a Gaza ceasefire agreement, although Israeli officials suggest an agreement could be reached any day. Netanyahu’s government also resisted US demands to allow a regular flow of humanitarian aid to desperate Palestinians. The domestic political fallout from the war dampened enthusiasm, particularly among progressives and Arab and Muslim-Americans, as Democrats competed for the White House.

The US had also warned Israel for months against the Lebanon campaign, but reversed course when it went better than expected.

“From the very first days of the war in Gaza, it was clear that Israel was in the driver’s seat and the United States was right there with it,” said John Hoffman, a conservative research fellow at the Washington-based Cato Institute. “The Biden administration has been astonishingly unable to achieve the results it wants in the Middle East.”

The Biden administration has consistently argued that its military support for Israel and the status of excess military assets in the region deterred Iran and facilitated Israel’s success. Privately, US officials also say that the devastation in Gaza is terrible, but would have been worse without the US prompting Israel to assist.

“There have been disagreements about collateral damage, civilian casualties and some Israeli decisions at different points since October 7, but at the strategic level, that never really saw the light of day,” Stroll said. “People inside the Biden administration believe they are on the verge of delivering a decent-set table to hand over to the next team.”

Secretary of State Antony Blinken once again visited Middle Eastern cities to press US priorities in dealing with the chaos in Syria – last week marking his 12th visit to the region since October 7. Yet his diplomacy has yielded few direct results.

On a typical day of Middle East diplomacy last week, Blinken boarded an Air Force C-17 cargo plane to the Turkish capital, landed in Baghdad a short time later and flew by Blackhawk helicopter to a meeting with Iraq’s prime minister. He concluded the day in the coastal port city of Aqaba on Jordan’s mountainous Red Sea coast to speak about Syria’s transition.

Asked in Jordan about Israeli actions in Syria, which have angered many Arab countries, Blinken said he supported them. As he toured the region, it was also clear the US was also at loggerheads with Turkey, which has backed militias in Syria that have fought against US-backed Kurdish forces while keeping Islamic State in check. – and have protected thousands of Islamic group fighters.

A US official said Washington was able to negotiate a ceasefire between Turkish-backed militias and US-backed Kurds in the northern city of Manbij through long-running military and diplomatic channels.

But the future is uncertain. Syria’s new government likely wants the oil wealth lying in Kurdish territory, and Turkey is unlikely to accept an autonomous region in the region because it views Kurdish fighters as terrorists.

At the same time, President-elect Donald Trump — who on Tuesday praised Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan as “a very smart guy” with “major military power” — has said the US should stay out of Syria.

Trump could withdraw up to 900 US troops deployed to Syria as part of a mission to counter the Islamic State, further reducing US influence in the country and Turkey – which he has said “is going to hold the key to Syria is” – may allow a freer hand. potentially enabling attacks against the Kurds.

“Right now, there are a lot of uncertainties in Syria,” Trump said Monday. “Nobody knows what’s going to happen with Syria.”

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