A Mideast at the precipice

Opinion editor’s note: Editorials represent the opinions of the Minnesota Star Tribune Editorial Board, which operates independently from the newsroom.

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Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Ohio Sen. JD Vance, the Democrat and Republican, respectively, vying for the vice presidency, will likely be asked in their high-stakes debate on Tuesday to reflect on the Midwest.

But a more consequential question may be about the Mideast. Especially America’s role in a conflict engulfing Israel, Lebanon, Yemen and Iran as well as nonstate actors like the Houthis, Hamas and Hezbollah, the Beirut-based terrorist group (so designated by Israel, the U.S. and many other nations) that’s reeling from a series of targeted killings — first with rank-and-file fighters via exploding pagers and walkie-talkies and then late last week with an Israeli airstrike that killed the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah.

While Nasrallah was not the only Iran-allied leader to be targeted recently, he was the most prominent figure from the most lethal of the theocracy’s proxies. He commanded the military, political and quasi-governmental components of Hezbollah, which is responsible for scores killed in Israel, Lebanon, Syria (due to Hezbollah’s complicity in Bashar Assad’s homicidal regime) and elsewhere. This toll tragically includes Americans, including 241 servicemembers slain in a 1983 suicide bombing carried out by a precursor organization to Hezbollah.

Hezbollah and Nasrallah “were responsible for killing hundreds of Americans over a four-decade reign of terror,” President Joe Biden said in a statement. “His death from an Israeli airstrike is a measure of justice from his many victims, including thousands of Americans, Israelis, and Lebanese civilians.”

The president put the conflict in context by calling out Nasrallah’s “fateful decision to join hands with Hamas and open what he called a ‘northern front’ against Israel.” That campaign has made whole areas uninhabitable due to constant rocket exchanges. Biden then reiterated that the U.S. “fully supports Israel’s right to defend itself against” Tehran’s terrorist spinoffs, and said that he had directed the Pentagon to “further enhance the defense posture of U.S. military forces in the Middle East region to deter aggression and reduce the risk of a broader regional war.”

The administration’s aim, the president continued, is to diplomatically “de-escalate the ongoing conflicts in both Gaza and Lebanon” in part through a deal backed by the U.N. Security Council for a cease-fire and release of hostages in Gaza as well as a pact that would return Israelis and Lebanese to their border homes.

“It is time,” Biden concluded, “for these deals to close, for the threats to Israel to be removed, and for the broader Middle East region to gain greater stability.”

The administration’s admonition for a diplomatic solution seems increasingly elusive, however, and not just because of the diplomatic difficulty negotiating with terrorist groups, let alone Iran, with which the U.S. does not have diplomatic relations. The Israeli government reportedly did not inform its indispensable American partner in advance of the strike, straining even further the relationship between the Biden administration and the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Israel’s actions “have not only been grievous for Hezbollah, but have been grievous for Iran,” said University of Minnesota Distinguished McKnight University Professor Ronald Krebs. Iran, said Krebs, believes “that the time is not opportune for any kind of massive retaliation.” And in fact, Tehran signaled as such on Sunday, with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei saying in a statement that “It will be Hezbollah, at the helm of the resistance forces, that will determine the fate of the region.”

If there is further escalation between Israel and Hezbollah (and as this editorial was crafted, Israel was reportedly mulling a ground invasion), Krebs said, “I don’t think the U.S. gets pulled in.” And yet, Krebs continued, recalling the earlier missile and drone barrage Iran launched against Israel, “if Iran were to respond in a way that really struck Israel and overwhelmed the Israeli missile defenses, as well as everything the Americans could throw at them, then I think we might see America get dragged in.”

America’s military superiority spurs patience in Tehran, Krebs said. But it seems best not to test this possibility — especially since Americans on a bipartisan basis seem to have no desire for another major Mideast war.

Accordingly, it’s deeply disappointing for key GOP leaders to criticize Biden’s bid to diplomatically end the carnage. House Speaker Mike Johnson, for instance, said in a statement that “We call on the Biden-Harris administration to end its counterproductive calls for a cease-fire and its ongoing diplomatic pressure campaign against Israel.”

Military veterans Vance and Walz know how fellow servicemembers have been impacted by war. They should be asked about this on Tuesday, as well as their knowledge and perspective on Israel, Iran and Lebanon, as well as the West Bank and Gaza, including the horrendously high citizen death toll. And the moderators should not allow the debate to be debased by baseless claims about the administration not having Israel’s back. Because the Mideast is too fraught for these two Midwesterners to distract or obfuscate.