Biden administration is now signaling that it backs an Israeli strike against Iran

(JTA) — WASHINGTON — The last time President Joe Biden helped Israel repel an Iranian missile onslaught, he advised Benjamin Netanyahu against retaliation, telling the prime minister to “take the win.” 

Now, after another barrage of missiles from Iran, things have changed: He’s giving Israel a green light — albeit with qualifications — to strike back.

Last week, the United States assisted Israel in repelling nearly 200 ballistic missiles Iran launched at the country, similar to what had occurred in April. The attack came after Israel killed the longtime leader of Hezbollah, the Lebanese terror group and chief Iranian proxy. 

But whereas Biden in April cautioned Israel against hitting back hard and reportedly was infuriated when Netanyahu ordered a retaliatory strike on Iran, this time top Biden officials are saying the story isn’t over — nor do they want it to be — though they also want to avoid a major regional conflagration. And Israelis sound happy to hear that message.

Brett McGurk, the top Middle East official on the National Security Council, said Wednesday in a High Holidays call with Jewish faith leaders that the Biden administration was “committed to holding Iran fully accountable for that attack,” and he suggested there would be more to come.

“This has our full complete attention, we will not waver in our commitment to the defense of Israel,” he said. “I think you’ll actually see that play out here over the coming weeks.”

Israel is also blaring its own signals that it will strike back in a big way: “As we have shown until now in this war and in all arenas — whoever attacks Israel will pay a price. Our strike will be powerful, precise, and above all — surprising. They will not understand what happened and how it happened,” Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told troops this week. 

Middle East watchers said the change is due to the unprecedented breadth and potency of Iran’s attack, and the greater dangers it posed.

The attack in April was a mix of low- and high-impact airborne devices, with drones leaving Iranian airspace hours before they would arrive — giving Israel, the United States and other allies a long heads-up to prepare. Last week’s attack, by contrast, was entirely ballistic missiles, giving Israel and the United States only about 15 minutes of advance warning.

“I believe that what the president has said is that it should be proportionate,” said Richard Fontaine, the CEO of the Center for a New American Security, a think tank founded by former national security officials who served in Democratic administrations. Biden is saying, Fontaine said, that “in the face of 200 ballistic missiles headed toward Israeli cities, that Israel is fully within its rights and would be prudent to try to reestablish a degree of deterrence by demonstrating that those kinds of attacks impose costs on the attacker.”

The attack in April was also smaller and more focused, said Fontaine on Thursday during a webinar. 

“This time feels quite different given the scale of the attack,” he said. “I think it’s a matter of what the retaliation strike looks like rather than whether there will be one at all.”

David Makovsky, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, also said the breadth of the Iranian attack last week led the Biden administration to conclude that retaliation was necessary. 

“​​The U.S. understands that Israel is going to hit back,” said Makovsky, whose think tank engages with high-level government officials in both countries.

Nonetheless, he said, Biden was warning Israel not to target installations that could escalate into all-out war, including Iran’s oil fields, its nuclear reactors and targets that could result in mass civilian deaths.

“The key is, is there a way Israel can make a point about deterrence that does not lead into a widening war,” Makovsky said. Hitting strictly military targets would have the added bonus of harming Iranian facilities that are manufacturing weapons Russia is using against Ukraine, he said.

“Do they try to hit Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps buildings. Do they try to hit drone manufacturers and ballistic missiles?” he said. “Those targets would have the benefit of being used against Ukraine.”

Michael Koplow, the chief policy director for the Israel Policy Forum, a group that advocates for the eventual establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, said he isn’t surprised that the Biden administration is qualifying its support for a retaliation. U.S. reluctance to fully back Israel is nothing new, he said, noting that President George W. Bush, seen historically as one of the most pro-Israel presidents, declined for a period to provide Israel with the “bunker busters” that could reach Iranian facilities.

“Right now, obviously it’s an even more tense point, given the need for Israel to respond to a direct ballistic missile attack,” he said in a webinar. “And it’s happening in the context of the U.S. wanting to avert a wider regional war, which is always the U.S. concern with regard to Iran and Israel, but all the more so when Israel is fighting in Gaza and is fighting in Lebanon.”

Biden initially fully backed Israel’s retaliations against Hamas for launching the war with its large-scale invasion on Oct. 7, 2023, and against Hezbollah for joining the war the next day. But he has in recent months differed with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over Israel’s conduct of the war, particularly regarding mitigating civilian casualties. 

Hamas, based in the Gaza Strip, and Hezbolllah, based in Lebanon, are backed by Iran, and Israel’s overwhelming response to the attacks, including decapitating much of the leadership of both groups (though not Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar) has spurred Iran’s escalating involvement in the war.

Another critical factor is the presidential election next month, Koplow said. 

“You can’t disconnect this in any way from a presidential election that is now officially less than four weeks away,” he said, “and what [retaliation] will do to the election, what Israel’s response will do to global energy prices, all sorts of things.”

He added, “I think this is a case where Israel is going to push for the maximal possible response, which, again, is not a new dynamic, and the U.S. is [going] to push Israel to dial things back.”

Jason Brodsky, the policy director at the United Against Nuclear Iran advocacy group, said Israel and the United States were at different points on what he called the “risk clock.”

“Israel right now is in a very risk-ready mood, but the U.S. is in a very risk-averse move,” he said. “Israel is risk-ready because of the success it’s had in decapitating Hezbollah, and it senses some momentum right now in its operations, and the U.S. is risk-averse because we’re on the verge of a presidential election.”

Israel may want to hit the most critical Iranian targets, including its nuclear sites, but is unlikely to do so without the requisite U.S. munitions, including bunker busting bombs, Brodsky said. That would then require the delivery of the munitions.

“The Israelis will have to balance what the cost-benefit would be to targeting nuclear sites without U.S. assistance, where they may be able to do damage, but not really destroy the program, as opposed to focusing their firepower on other targets where they could make more of an impact,” he said in an interview.

Barbara Slavin, a distinguished fellow at the Stimson Center, a think tank that researches means of stemming conflict, said Netanyahu was seizing on a window of opportunity before the election, knowing Biden and his hoped-for successor, Vice President Kamala Harris, would be loath to take action that could alienate voters.

“I think he sees that this has been a window for him, where the Biden administration doesn’t cut him off for fear of hurting Kamala Harris’s election,” she said.

Slavin said she did not expect Netanyahu to pay Biden any heed; if the prime minister would listen to anyone urging him to restrain his military response, it would be the Arab nations in the Persian Gulf that normalized relations with Israel — a legacy he hopes to preserve and expand — and who would face enormous blowback if Iran expands the war.

“If I have any hope in this, frankly, it’s not with U.S. diplomacy,” she said. “It’s with the fact that the Gulf Cooperation Council [of Arab states] and Iran are now on speaking terms and are trying to de-escalate to the extent that they can. I would hope that GCC members, particularly those with diplomatic relations with Israel, would be cautioning Netanyahu against attacking in a massive way.”

Israeli leaders, in government and in the opposition, are saying that the attack requires a commensurate response, and want the international community (that is, the United States) to step up.

“There is only one force in the world fighting Iran right now,” Netanyahu told a visiting delegation of U.S. Jewish leaders this week. “There’s only one force in the world that stands in Iran’s way to conquest. And that force is Israel. If we don’t fight, we die. But it’s not only our fight, it’s the free world’s fight, and I would say the civilized world’s fight.”

Benny Gantz, an opposition party leader, sent a similar message, writing in The New York Times that governments must engage militarily within Iran “aggressively and proactively.”

“The time to act against Iran is now,” he wrote. “It’s not only a matter of necessity for Israel but also one of strategic imperative for the region and moral clarity for the world for the sake of peace and prosperity in the Middle East.”