US meltdown in the Middle East

The U.S. is headed for a meltdown of its position in the Middle East as it is trying, unrealistically to reconcile reality in the region with both the unity of the progressive-liberal Democratic Party coalition — and to do so on a domestic U.S. political timeline that starts in January.

It wants israel to limit its strikes to just getting Hamas leadership, but there is no way to do that without the IDF’s going in on the ground.

The U.S. wants Israel to reduce the intensity of the war, but also wants it all to finish the war in two weeks.

It wants Israel to turn over Gaza to the Palestinian Authority, but the PA is negotiating with Hamas leadership to turn over governance of part of the PA to Hamas and to share power in the West Bank.

It wants Israel to reduce the intensity of the war to ease pressure for a backlash among the Palestinians and their progressive supporters, but polls show that 1) Palestinians are radicalized and energized by the depraved violence of Oct. 7 as well as the images of dying Israeli soldiers, and not by the war itself and 2) Hamas leadership is increasingly confident that international intervention — manifest in buckling U.S. will, increasing pressure on Israel, and political support from global progressives — will save them, will constrain Israel and lead to their coming out of the war with regional and Palestinian popular momentum which enables a takeover of the West Bank.

The U.S. strongly wants Israel to avoid any escalation in the north, but offers no feasible plan to address how the currently displaced 200,000 Israelis can safely return home with Hizballah breathing down on them.

The U.S. tells Israel it had to stop taking actions to keep the Red Sea open to shipping to Israel, but then it constrains the U.S. Navy and deploys it to assume only an inadequate defensive posture rather than shut down the threat.

In general, the U.S. thinks that Iran can be engaged — just yesterday they released another 10 billion to Tehran — to bring regional stability, despite the fact that 1) it is constraining Israel from administering a regional defeat on Iran that creates a climate of Iranian retreat and 2) the U.S. displays extreme escalatory timidity in the face of nearly 100 attacks on U.S. bases — creating understanding regionally that the U.S. neither has a plan B nor has the will to stand Iran down.

The U.S. is headed for a catastrophic meltdown of its position in the Middle East that will have grave global implications.