President Joe Biden wishes Israel not to retaliate against the Islamic Republic of Iran’s attempt to attack with 351 drones and missiles. Although the strike largely failed, it set a dangerous precedent.

In line with Biden, many of Israel’s western allies are pressuring Israel not to respond. Everyone is concerned about the breakout of an all-out regional war in the Middle East, and since the attack catastrophically failed, many argue that there is no reason to escalate.

While Israel has declared its intent to “hit back” at Iran, Biden, has declared the US would not participate in any Israeli attack against Iran, while stressing the US’s “Iron Clad” commitment to defend Israel. The last time a US president warned Israel not to attack an adversary, was during the presence of an existential threat in 1967.

Biden’s appeasement policy, billed as “de-escalation” and “containment”, has failed to act as an effective deterrence and critics say the US administration can no longer shrink from its own responsibility with regards to Israel-Iran Proxies entering a phase of “Open Conflict.”

Biden’s continued efforts at “containing” the Iranian regime is informed by domestic economic concerns, namely, skyrocketing oil prices, if the Middle East is plunged into a region wide conflict. Correspondingly, Biden is concerned with his own ongoing unpopularity amongst the independent voters as well as amongst the critical Arab-Muslim voting bloc in bellwether states like Michigan. 

However, long before any such consideration becomes an important part of any “re-election” calculus, the Biden administration’s propensity to “de-escalation”, read “appeasement”, was its Achilles heel that was exploited by Iran and its proxies.

Since assuming the presidency, Joe Biden’s foreign policy has been marred with adopting policy options that have at once emboldened the adversaries of the US and its allies and provoked uncertainty and insecurity amongst many US partners globally. 

Biden’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan marks the first significant misstep that only emboldened various actors, from Russia to Iran, to test the limits of Biden’s “de-escalation” policy. Biden’s vision of US national security, as outlined in Biden’s National Security Strategy, prioritizes the threat Russia and China pose and seeks to proactively confront them in strategic fissure points of conflict like Ukraine and the South China Sea.

Shahram Kholdi has taught Politics and History of the Middle East, History of Oil, and International Relation in various universities in Ontario, Canada, over the past 12 years. He received his doctoral degree from the University of Manchester, UK, in 2011. He is currently preparing doctoral thesis, the Politics of Memory and the Historiography of the 1979 Revolution, for publication as a book.