A Reckless and Dangerous Israeli Assassination in Iran
The Biden administration’s ongoing failure to rein in the Israeli government has allowed things to reach this point.
The Israeli government assassinated the leader of Hamas’ political wing while he was in Tehran to attend the inauguration of the newly-elected Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian:
Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas’s political wing, was killed in Iran, Hamas announced Wednesday, describing the death as an assassination. Hamas and Iran both blamed Israel and vowed to retaliate; the Israel Defense Forces declined to comment. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said it was Iran’s “duty” to avenge the killing, and Hamas’s armed wing, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, warned of “major repercussions” for the whole region.
Killing a top political leader of Hamas seems designed to scuttle any chance of a ceasefire in the near future, and doing this on Iranian soil seems all but guaranteed to provoke a strong reaction from the Iranian government and its proxies elsewhere in the region. Netanyahu couldn’t make it any clearer that he has no interest in ending the war in Gaza and that he welcomes a wider conflict. The Biden administration’s ongoing failure to rein in the Israeli government has allowed things to reach this point.
The region is on the edge of a knife, and the Israeli government has been trying for months to start a major conflagration. The assassination in Iran comes on the heels of an Israeli strike in Beirut this week and the attack on vital civilian infrastructure in Hodeidah in Yemen earlier this month. The Israeli attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus back in April led to a significant Iranian military response. The Iranian government is pledging to avenge the Haniyeh assassination, and there will be tremendous pressure from their own hardliners to inflict more damage than they did in the last reprisal.
The assassination will be an important test for the candidates in the election. It is safe to assume that Trump has no problem with a reckless and dangerous assassination that risks war with Iran because he ordered one himself four years ago, and his running mate has defended that terrible decision on more than one occasion. That leaves Harris. As Spencer Ackerman writes today, this is Harris’ opportunity to demonstrate that she will be different from Biden on these issues:
Harris is not a passive observer. She is the second most-senior elected official in the United States, and this is the situation she is looking to inherit. We know that Trump wants to let the Israelis "finish the job." Is that also Harris' position, with a sprinkling of rhetorical compassion for Palestinians acting as cover for policy continuity? Or will she demonstrate the leadership necessary to stop a coalescing, escalating regional war that the United States possesses the material leverage on Israel to end?
Harris has some strong political incentives to break with Biden’s disastrous policy. Not only is support for the war broadly unpopular among Democrats and among the general public, but she also risks losing many voters that she has a chance of winning back after they were alienated by Biden’s terrible handling of the war. Many progressives and other opponents of the war have been hoping that she will commit to a significant change in policy, but if she doesn’t that is going to cost her some crucial support in competitive states. Breaking with Biden’s policy is also undeniably the right thing to do. Failing to come out strongly against it when she is in a position to influence the policy for the better would tell us that her foreign policy judgment is quite poor.
Assassinating Haniyeh while he was in Iran also seems likely to derail any renewed effort at diplomatic engagement with Iran that might have been possible after Pezeshkian’s election. Pezeshkian was already facing a steep uphill battle to pursue diplomacy with Western governments before this, and now he will likely have even less room to maneuver than before. The Iranian government is almost certain to respond harshly to the killing one of their diplomatic guests in their capital, and this time Israel may not be able to count on Iranian restraint to rescue them from Netanyahu’s stupidity.
The U.S. ought to tell Netanyahu that he is on his own now, but we know that the administration will reflexively back Israel in any larger war. That is going to put American soldiers and sailors in Iraq, Syria, and the Red Sea at greater risk of attack. U.S. forces in the region are in greater danger today because of what Netanyahu has just done. That is what the U.S. gets for its continued indefensible backing of that government.
It is abundantly obvious that Israel seeks to provoke a reaction from Hezbollah in order to run screaming to its American thug. If Israel does not get the reaction it seeks, then it simply behaves more outrageously.
It is also obvious that the United States and its various catamites are on board with this, even ad Hezbollah desperately tries to avoid war.
Don't expect Harris to take a principled position on this or any other issue. She is a fantastic example of failing upward.
Harris never demonstrated any interest in governing or any leadership capacity as SF DA, California AG or U.S. Senator. Her one "bold" policy position - her co-sponsorship of Medicare for All - was pure, opportunistic political theater. Harris backed away the minute it became politically expedient to do so. Her own staff attorneys at the AG's office leaked a memo to the press after she failed to prosecute One West Bank for massive foreclosure fraud. And her serial refusals to comply with federal court orders to release inmates from California prisons due to unconstitutional prison conditions on the order of then Gov. Jerry Brown should have resulted in a state bar disciplinary action. Instead, her actions resulted in state prisoners fighting California wildfires for pennies paid in wages.
Harris has also demonstrated zero management skills as her gross mismanagement of a SF drug lab scandal exposed. The lab scandal resulted in the dismissal of hundreds of criminal cases and should have led to her state bar referral for unprofessional conduct. It is worth noting that Harris still has problems with very high staff turnover.
Harris's political career started with her very public affair with one of California's most powerful politicians (a much older, married Willie Brown who appointed her to paid state board sinecures and whose political machine backed her run for SF DA). She rose to power during the "tough on crime, 3 strikes and you're out" era which took no courage at all if one was careful to avoid white collar crime prosecutions and riling Catholic dioceses (in Harris's case the SF diocese) during the several waves of clerical sex abuse scandals.
Harris is more corporate than Biden which takes some doing. She has never challenged power or money, and she never will which is why she is the presumptive Dem nominee.
Harris is a hollow vessel. Count on her to shed crocodile tears for the Palestinians and to change nothing.