This Is the War That Biden Chose

The president has not “found himself deeply entangled” in the war in Gaza. He jumped headlong into backing the campaign without any conditions.

The framing of this Washington Post article on Biden and the war in Gaza is bizarre:

This article, based on interviews with 20 administration officials and outside advisers, examines how Biden, more than five months after the Oct. 7 attacks, has found himself deeply entangled in a war he does not want [bold mine-DL] and that threatens to become a defining element of his tenure.

American reporters often describe U.S. involvement in foreign conflicts in this way, and it is deeply misleading. The suggestion is that the president did not wish to be so involved in this war, but was somehow pulled in against his will. That’s not true. The president has not “found himself deeply entangled” in the war in Gaza. He jumped headlong into backing the campaign without any conditions.

More than any American president before him, Biden chose to throw his full support behind an Israeli war and closely identified himself and his larger foreign policy goals with the prosecution of that war. He then persisted in backing the war while the Israeli government’s policy of collective punishment devastated Gaza and drove the population into famine. Biden didn’t just end up as an enabler of mass starvation and genocide. He is exactly where he chose to be.