Who Is in Charge?

It’s always possible to overread situations, but, just in case you like speculation, here goes. The question is: who is in charge of the Biden administration?

On Friday Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin rejected a plea deal that Brigadier General Susan Escallier had negotiated with three of the September 11 terrorists. The deal involved life imprisonment, but not the death penalty. Austin then took personal charge of the case and put the death penalty back into play. Evidently, he was not satisfied by the work performed by a strong, empowered woman. 

At the same time, with Iran increasingly threatening Israel, Austin increased American military presence in the region. One does not suspect that the higher authorities in the Biden administration ordered the move, because Austin’s actions suggested that he was acting on his own authority.

Austin seemed to understand that a show of force in favor of an ally was an excellent deterrent.

The New York Times reported:

Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III on Friday ordered additional combat aircraft and missile-shooting warships to the Middle East in response to threats from Iran and its proxies in Gaza, Lebanon and Yemen to attack Israel in the coming days to avenge the death of Ismail Haniyeh, the Pentagon said.

To maintain the presence of an aircraft carrier and its accompanying warships in the region, Mr. Austin also directed the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, now in the eastern Pacific, to relieve the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt in the next couple of weeks when it is scheduled to return home.

Keep in mind that when Austin was hospitalized for surgery he did not bother to tell the White House. This suggests that he lacked confidence in the people who are in charge over there.

In contrast, President Biden had a conversation with the Israeli Prime Minister where he whined about a cease fire.

Biden said:

“I’m very concerned about it. I had a very direct meeting with the Prime Minister [of Israel] today—very direct. We have the basis for a cease-fire. They should move on it and they should move on it now.”

Like Kamala Harris, Joe Biden is obsessed with saving Hamas. He wants above all else for Israel to make a deal with the terrorists, regardless of the consequences. Lloyd Austin was firm and decisive. Joe Biden was muddled and whiny. 

One suspects that Joe Biden is incapable of doing  full analysis of his policy, so we turn to the New York Times’ columnist Tommy Friedman. 

His latest column makes clear his bias. As we have often pointed out, he thinks very ill of the Israeli Prime Minister and attacks Netanyahu as a way to absolve Joe Biden of responsibility for the mess that his policies have produced.

Tommy Friedman explains that the October 7 terrorist massacre was provoked by Israel:

It could not be more clear now that, while Hamas’s surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7 was triggered in part by reckless Israeli settlement expansions, brutal treatment of Palestinian prisoners and encroachments on Muslim religious sites in Jerusalem, the terrorist assault was also part of a broader Iranian campaign to drive America out of the Middle East and America’s Arab and Israeli allies into a corner — before they could corner Iran.

Like Biden, Tommy thinks that assassinating a Hamas leader was a bad idea. 

As a former Israeli diplomat, Alon Pinkas, observed in Haaretz on Thursday, one has to wonder why Netanyahu chose now to assassinate the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran — in the middle of delicate hostage talks.

Tommy trusts the Palestinian Authorities. He trusts the leaders of Hamas. He does not trust the big, bad Netanyahu:

In Netanyahu’s nearly 17 years in power, Bibi has both aided and undermined American interests in the region. I would not trust Netanyahu for a second to put U.S. interests ahead of his own political survival needs — since he won’t even put Israel’s interests ahead of them.

Tommy does not want to win the war against Hamas. The simple fact that Israel has chosen not to negotiate with terrorists but to defeat them bothers him, to no end. He still thinks that Hamas and the Palestinian Authority are rivals, and therefore Israel ought to make peace with the latter.

Iran knew it had to prevent this Saudi-U.S.-Israel deal or be strategically isolated. Hamas knew it had to prevent this deal because it could enable Israel’s integration into the Muslim world — in partnership with Hamas’s chief Palestinian rival, the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, and with Saudi Arabia.

As it happens, and as Tommy did not notice, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority have become allies in the struggle against Israel. The notion that we can choose the one while isolating the other is Tommy’s wet dream. No evidence suggests that this is a good idea or is even doable.

While Tommy was lost in the clouds of his own cowardice, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority signed an accord to govern Gaza together.

The AP reported on July 23:

Palestinian factions and bitter foes Hamas and Fatah signed a declaration in China vowing to form a unity government to govern the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip following the end of the Israel-Hamas war.

The agreement announced in Beijing on Tuesday, which also included 12 smaller Palestinian parties, could start the thawing of relations and potential reconciliation of the two heavyweights of Palestinian politics who have long been at odds over the governance of the Palestinian territories.

The AP explains the Israeli reaction to this alliance:

Israel has ruled out any initiative that would lead to Hamas or the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority governing Gaza, and the China deal offers only a broad outline on how Fatah and Hamas would work together.

Nevertheless, Tommy Friedman and the mini-minds of the Biden administration still believe that they can save Hamas.

The only way to truly marginalize Hamas politically and isolate Iran regionally is for Israel to help empower the obvious and more moderate alternative: the Palestinian Authority, which has embraced the Oslo Accords and cooperates with Israel daily to try to keep a lid on West Bank violence — which Netanyahu knows very well but will not acknowledge because he wants to delegitimize any credible Palestinian alternative to Hamas so he can tell the world, and Israelis, that Israel has no partner for a two-state solution.

Whereas our Defense Secretary moved more military assets into the region, Tommy’s solution, which is also Biden’s, involves embracing the Palestinian Authority as a legitimate political force.

With that one chess move — embracing the Palestinian Authority — Netanyahu could cement the U.S.-Israeli-Arab alliance, put in place a Palestinian governing structure in Gaza that would not threaten Israel and isolate Iran and its proxies militarily and politically, making their bet on Hamas’s war an utter waste of lives and money. But Bibi would have to risk his governing coalition to do it, because his extremist far-right messianic partners oppose any deal with any credible Palestinians.

Now that Fatah has embraced Hamas, Tommy thinks that it would be a brilliant chess move to embrace the Palestinian Authority. Obviously, he has been smoking the wrong kind of cigarettes.

Dare we mention that the Defense Secretary has a much better idea about the Middle East chess board than do the Biden foreign policy team or Tommy Friedman. Would that Austin were in charge of more policy.

Please subscribe to my Substack, for free or preferably for a fee.