By John Bolton
(April 21, 2024 / NYP) With Israel facing overwhelming pressure from President Biden, its Friday retaliation against Iran was an exercise in minimalism.
Jerusalem did cross one important Iranian red line, at whose mere mention the Biden administration has quailed.
Bibi Netanyahu’s war cabinet authorized an overt attack against a target on the soil of Iran, which Israel had previously attacked only covertly.
Point therefore made, albeit one that should have made many years ago.
Beyond that, there is little to celebrate.
Jerusalem’s riposte to Tehran’s massive April 13-14 missile-and-drone attack on Israel has solved nothing else substantive. Iran continues closing its “ring of fire” around Israel, which will likely now refocus on finishing Hamas.
It is frivolous to say, as some do, that Israel has established “escalation dominance” over Iran, having struck the first and last blows.
In fact, the parties exchanged a few glancing blows, with no material change in their capabilities.
Nonetheless, there were winners and losers from the exchange. Consider these:
Biggest winner. Beyond dispute, Biden wears the largest smile, his administration having all but broken Netanyahu’s arm to force Israel’s limp reaction.
The White House did not operate on a strategic plane here, except for demonstrating yet again its limitless deference to Iran.
Instead, the administration was playing domestic American politics and achieved two potentially critical objectives.
By saving Iran from a meaningful Israeli response, Biden has at least postponed the prospect of further increases in international oil prices and their inevitable consequence of increasing gasoline’s price at the pump in the United States.
And Biden forestalled intensified criticism from progressive Democrats who oppose his Middle East policies (such as they are) and could sink his prospects in November merely by staying home in key states like Michigan and Nevada.
Second biggest winner. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his regime literally dodged the bullets that Israel never fired.
The mullahs carefully watched Biden make Israel knuckle under, and they will not hesitate to exploit that lesson militarily and diplomatically as their ring-of-fire strategy continues unfolding.
Their near-theological hold on Biden’s administration, as on Barack Obama’s, continues to thrive, and Khamenei and his advisers sense the palpable political fear emanating from the White House.
More than six months into the current war against “the little Satan,” Iran has still suffered no measurable damage on its home turf. In the psychological-warfare contest with America, it is unfortunately Iran that has “escalation dominance.”
Biggest losers. The security of the American and Israeli peoples suffered the most.
Biden muscled Israel’s war cabinet but bent his knee to our mutual adversaries in Iran, revealing by this unforced error crippling weakness in the White House.
On one hand, he was dismayed by Israel’s successful April 1 attack in Damascus against leaders of Iran’s Quds Force.
On the other, he asserted embarrassingly that just staying alive after Iran’s missile-and-drone barrage was an Israeli “win” requiring Jerusalem to rest on its laurels and not retaliate.
Israel, however, is struggling to escape living under the gun of Iran and its terrorist proxies, not celebrate it.
Our global adversaries, especially Moscow and Beijing, must have marveled at Biden’s sophistry, which sadly rises to the level of Lenin’s scorn for “useful idiots.”
And the basis of Biden’s overconfidence may well be wrong.
Israeli and U.S. missile defenses were not as fully tested as first thought.
Largely unnoticed, The Wall Street Journal and CBS reported that half of Iran’s 120 ballistic missiles failed, either at liftoff or before being shot down.
If true, out of 320 Iranian projectiles, Israel’s missile defenses faced only around 60 ballistic missiles, plus 30 cruise missiles and 170 much-slower drones.
Iran’s failures do not detract from Israel’s missile-defense successes, including Jordanian and Saudi participation.
They do, however, underscore that if Iran launches more properly functioning missiles next time, we may not be so successful.
And the irony is heavy. Biden strongly opposed George W. Bush’s 2002 withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which opened the floodgates of knowledge on all types of missile defenses, bearing fruit today.
Washington is reportedly readying sanctions against an Israeli army battalion for alleged human-rights violations.
If true, this news reveals Joe Biden’s real direction. So much for restraint.
John Bolton was national security adviser to President Donald Trump, 2018-19, and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, 2005-06.
This op-ed was originally published in the New York Post and can be viewed here.