Red Lines
The perils of speaking loudly while carrying a small stick.
Veteran NYT correspondent David Sanger observes, “On the Tripwire of a ‘Red Line,’ It’s Often Presidents Who Trip.“
When President Biden declared over the weekend that he was drawing a “red line” for Israel’s military action in Gaza, he appeared to be trying to raise the potential cost for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as their relationship plummets to new depths.
But he never said what would happen, exactly, if Mr. Netanyahu ignored him and continued Israel’s military operation by invading the southern city Rafah, a step that Mr. Biden has said — repeatedly — would be a major mistake. It is unclear whether he hesitated because he did not want to signal what response he might be preparing, or because he did not want to be criticized if he backed away from whatever action he is contemplating.
Or perhaps, given his long experience in the Senate and the White House, he remembered that drawing red lines turned out badly for Barack Obama when it came to Syria, and for George W. Bush when it came to North Korea and Iran. American allies in the Middle East were stunned by Mr. Obama’s reversal. Mr. Bush was later judged to have invaded a country that had no nuclear weapons — Iraq — while the North tested its first nuclear weapon on his watch.
Mr. Biden’s line-drawing was immediately dismissed — and matched — by Mr. Netanyahu, who shot back: “You know, I have a red line. You know what the red line is? That Oct. 7 doesn’t happen again.” The prime minister was referring, of course, to the Hamas attack that killed 1,200 people in Israel, left scores more as hostages and precipitated a war now in its sixth month.
Such talk of red lines is hardly new: Leaders of all stripes, from heads of democracies to vicious autocrats, often invoke the phrase to describe moves that another country should not even contemplate, because the consequences would be more painful than they could imagine. The odd thing in this case is that the lines are being drawn by two allies who regularly celebrate how close they are but whose dialogue has begun to turn somewhat poisonous.
[…]
In public, the White House will not discuss the subject. At a briefing with reporters on Air Force One on Monday, as Mr. Biden headed to New Hampshire for a campaign event, a White House spokesman refused to say what price Israel would pay if it crossed Mr. Biden’s red line. And Mr. Biden himself ruled out cutting off any defensive weapons, like Iron Dome, the U.S.-Israeli missile defense project that has intercepted short-range missiles shot into Israel by Hamas.
“It is a red line, but I am never going to leave Israel,” he said in an interview with MSNBC last week. “The defense of Israel is still critical. So there is no red line I am going to cut off all weapons, so they don’t have the Iron Dome to protect them.”
“But there’s red lines that if he crosses,” he added, drifting off from completing the sentence — or the threat. “You cannot have 30,000 more Palestinians dead.”
In using the red-line wording, with its vivid suggestion of some kind of tripwire, Mr. Biden was also wading into dangerous territory for American presidents. Time and again in the past few decades, Mr. Biden’s predecessors have described limits that America’s adversaries or allies could not step over without invoking the most severe consequences.
And time and again, they have come to regret it.
The number of cases offered is few and, indeed, Obama’s famous Syria declaration is the only one that I recall using the phrase “red line.” But Sanger’s larger point—that declaring that another country “better not” do something without being prepared to deliver on an “or else”—is indeed fraught.
Students often raise the Obama example in seminar and, while I agree that it was an error, I note that he at least had the good judgment not to compound it with a bigger one: following through. Assad’s use of chemical weapons didn’t materially change the level of atrocities in an already atrocious war nor the American interest in intervention. Drawing U.S. forces into that war would have been far worse than having a little egg on our faces. (And there were face-saving maneuvers: putting the ball in Congress’ court, which bought time for a modest deal negotiated by Secretary of State John Kerry with the help of the Russians.)
Several OTB commenters argued, in response to my post yesterday morning on Netanyahu’s thumbing his nose at Biden’s red line, that we should immediately halt aid to Israel. But the fact of the matter is that Israel going into Rafah won’t materially change the nature of the conflict nor U.S. interests or public opinion. Biden simply isn’t going to abandon an ally responding ferociously to a horrific terrorist attack.
I think Biden is playing the long game here. He recognizes that Israel is probably past the point of no return and, for US interests, its strategic negatives now significantly outweigh the strategic positives. They are a country to be managed, not a real ally. But the domestic political angle is tougher, with decades of lock-in from various interest groups, not least of which is the crazy fundamentalist Christian coalition. That’s why Biden is smart to make Netanyahu his target. First, it sends a message that two can play at the “meddle in our domestic politics” game, and second, it gives Biden coverage: “We are trying to help Israel but this whacko trying to save his own ass is endangering the whole country.”
But long term, by making this about Israel being undependable and, yes, ungrateful, it begins to change the image of Israel for more and more people. Future Presidents, in particular, will come into office knowing that Israel has no respect for them or the US, and will undercut them and meddle in our electoral politics at the drop of a hat.
Small correction: The SOS who negotiated a deal with the Russians was John Kerry.
I’ll agree that Obama’s “red line” was a rhetorical mistake, but the bargain he struck – disarming Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile – was brilliant. It’s too bad so many people prefer to recall the rhetoric rather than the reality.
@Neil Hudelson: Weird typo that I’ll chalk up to sleep deprivation. Fixed now!
@Cheryl Rofer: Kerry himself thinks Obama was wrong not to follow through with strikes, even though he agrees that the deal was a good one.
@James Joyner: Well yeah, “we paid a price,” and people like you continue to extract it.
There are some things where less public transparency is better. Issuing so called Red Lines is one of those things. So called because let’s call it what it is – a “Red Line” is an ultimatum.
For a variety of reasons political leaders have strong incentives to not back down in the face of a public ultimatum even in cases when it might be best for them to do so.
This is especially true in a democracy when the ultimatum is regarding something most of the population supports.
Such things are best done in private, especially among allies, particularly democratic ones.
So Biden shouldn’t be doing this. It’s likely to elicit the opposite reaction from Israel. He and his team aren’t dumb and they should know this. So why are they doing it?
@Andy:
Pandering to the surrender now, wing.
Every round of ammunition, or other item of aid, we were able to take from stock and send to Israel should have gone to Ukraine. Otherwise, there’s an ongoing catastrophe that Biden can’t really do anything about. I hope there’s a lot of behind the scenes diplomacy and pressure, but there’s not much Biden can do publicly. So he’s playing political games trying to have it both ways. It’s unbecoming, but given that Trumpsky is the alternative, I’m all for it.
Statements made by POTUS have different audiences–which is where pundits err in their analysis of these statements. In this case, the audience was the Democratic Left–not Netanyahu. Biden has to shore them up with rhetoric that gives them a peek into the tension he has with the Israelis without erring the actual dirty laundry.
As for Obama, more election rhetoric to reassure the right leaning voters in his coalition of his foreign policy chops. The actual red line was crossed over a year later which the political climate to even the most casual observer would have hampered an immediate follow through by Obama.
At any rate–the Obama team actually did achieve the goal to de-Chemicalize Syria–so most of the punditry around this “red line” today is urban myth.
https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/the-myth-about-obamas-red-line-in-syria
@MarkedMan:
The Israelis have made themselves de facto MAGA allies. It’s sad. But they’ve already lost the college vote, so I’m not sure this is a mistake for them, politically. They’re edging away from the West, becoming more of a Middle Eastern country. We’ll still sell them weapons, we sell to everyone in the region. But their future seems more likely to be as the Saudi’s tough guy pal, than as our little buddy. I suspect the Saudis, seeing their own military limpness against the Houthis, have decided they’d rather Israel be the regional power than Turkey or Iran. The KSA or UAE can easily make up for any diminution in American weapons subsidies. Distancing from us might be the smart move for Israel.
Domestically, we’ve gone from outrage at Israel being falsely accused of hitting a hospital in October to a general shrug/crazed incoherent outburst at whatever the next IDF atrocity is, and it’s been only five months. No one can articulate what any of Israel’s goals are beyond the childlike fantasies of defeat evil, none of which is believable because every other day Israel explains to the world the set of all evil includes 3-year olds. We are at the basic intellectual level of the Bush voter in 2004 who doesn’t care about WMDs being found and who thinks that Iraq was behind 9/11.
Former Republicans and libertarians and whatever may find this a comforting place to be. But I don’t think that goes for long-standing Democrats, even those who have been pro-Israel their entire lives. Just explaining away this or that atrocity like you’re an autistic midwit Dr Strangelove is not satisfactory to people with some emotional complexity. That’s why most Democrats support a permanent ceasefire. They probably do not Trump if one doesn’t happen. Regardless, Biden is trying to hedge the position.
in a related-to-the-Obama-red-line matter …
My recollection is that Obama sought congressional approval for air strikes within Syria but Republican were not going to give him that. That ‘red line’ was as much a domestic political miscalculation as a foreign policy rhetorical mistake.
No matter though, that ‘red line’ is what sticks.
@Modulo Myself:
This is what I don’t understand about this. I know there’s the whole “what we learn from history is that we don’t learn from history” reality, but 9/11 isn’t WWI, or WWII, or even Vietnam. It’s within the living memory of most people on the planet. The US/Western Response to it didn’t really end until 2 years ago. I know of no one who thinks that it was a success. Why does Israel think they’re going to accomplish anything better; if anything, their situation is worse; there was an ocean between the countries the US invaded.
@Kevin McKenzie: I don’t think Bibi is trying to accomplish anything other than delaying the inevitable. Israel is just along for the ride.
@Cheryl Rofer & @Jim Brown 32:
They got rid of the industrial production, storage, and most of the stockpiles, but as the Khan Shaykhun attack several years later showed, Syria didn’t give up all of it.
@Modulo Myself:
The goal of destroying Hamas is pretty clear and obvious. The goal of removing threats to Israel such that an attack like 10/7 cannot happen again in the future is clear and obvious. You know, kind of like what we did in Afghanistan and then Syria. And yeah, like cancer, it never totally goes away, but you can cut the heads, arms, and legs off these groups so that they don’t have the capability for major operations and then you can spend some minimal resources to play whack-a-mole to keep them suppressed.
Israel actually has clear and obvious goals here.
No one still quite understands what Hamas was trying to achieve by starting this war, and having now started it, they seem to have switched to survival mode. Meanwhile, Hezbollah hasn’t come to their aid, Iran is only willing to be annoying and not risk anything, and every Arab government seems to be rooting for Israel to rid the region of this troublesome group.
What Democrats support is irrelevant as Democrats are not a party to this conflict. And in terms of goals, talk of a permanent ceasefire is what is an inarticulate and childlike fantasy, no different from demanding the same in Ukraine or any other war.
There was, after all, a “permanent” ceasefire in place on 10/6, which Hamas broke in a rather dramatic and brutal way. What evidence is there that any new “permanent” ceasefire will not similarly be temporary in reality? What evidence is there that Hamas will not again steal resources meant for Gaza to rebuild its military capacity in order to repeat what it has done before to achieve its openly stated goals of murdering Jews and cleansing them from the River to the Sea? It has, after all, openly stated that it plans to repeat 10/7 in the future whenever it can. In order to have an actual permanent ceasefire, Hamas would need to become a fundamentally different organization, and its public statements suggest that isn’t going to happen.
@Kevin McKenzie:
Israel isn’t repeating the US mistakes – at least not yet. The US mistakes were:
– Invading Iraq, using 9/11 as a justification. Israel is not using 10/7 too, for example, conduct a regime change war against Jordan or some other country.
– Change the mission in Afghanistan from retribution to nation-building. The reason we got stuck in Afghanistan for two decades is because of the naive and Quixotic effort to turn the place into a functioning democracy. Israel has no desire to do nation-building in Gaza – at most it wants to occupy the place to prevent the formation of another hostile government, but it doesn’t really have the manpower to do that long-term. More likely, it will wall itself off from Gaza and conduct punitive raids and strikes whenever it sees a threat emerge.
IOW, the situation with Israel is fundamentally different than the US after 9/11, and the mistakes we made and lessons we learned are not directly applicable.
How Biden May Have Just Doomed Hostages & Helped Hamas
Dave Rubin talking with David M. Friedman, former U.S. ambassador to Israel (full disclosure, they are in Israel)
The mainstream media like to ignore that Americans are still among the hostages. And Biden’s give aid and comfort to Hamas encouraging them to increase civilian casualties and never give up their kidnap victims.
@Andy: “The goal of destroying Hamas is pretty clear and obvious.”
It is? Could you explain how it’s to be done — and more importantly how anyone will know it’s done?
Hamas is a terrorist organization based on an ideology. What defines its destruction?
@Andy: The “goal” of destroying Hamas is only obvious if one believes in the GWOT, the war on drugs, and Middle East peace. Color me skeptical from day one. It wouldn’t surprise me at all to discover that Bibi orchestrated the conditions for the October attack to create a “need” to destroy Hamas.
@Andy:
I thought their goals were pretty clear:
1. Disrupt an unacceptable status quo in Gaza — it’s a flip the chess board move, except the opponent cannot just walk away. Do it enough times, and there will be pressure to find a more stable status quo. This is easier when you don’t care about the population, and are willing to sacrifice them as martyrs.
2. Disrupt normalization of relations between Israel and its neighbors, particularly Saudi Arabia — I think it is too early to see how successful they are. Hamas clearly was hoping for a larger, regional war.
3. Kill some Jews — I think we have to rate this as a success. It’s not much of a goal, but they are antisemites. It’s kind of their thing, and what they use for recruitment and boosting internal morale. They need to do it from time to time to be relevant.
I don’t think driving a wedge between the US and Israel was anywhere in their goals, not even as a stretch goal, that’s a bonus that is succeeding beyond their wildest expectations. A benefit of the “create chaos and see what happens” tactics.
@Andy:
And this is why the Israeli conflict with their occupied territories will continue. Israel is content to let one third of their population live in despair.
The vast majority of the Palestinians were born in Israeli occupied territories. The majority of them had parents were born in occupied territories. These people are at a very fundamental level Israelis. Israelis who are treated like shit and written off and periodically bombed. Living in poverty, with unemployment rates several times the US’s during the Great Depression.
Call it what you will — occupied territories, an open air prison, a ghetto, a reservation, apartheid — the state of Israel dominates and oppresses, does not allow a two-state solution of any form, and the wealth and security of the people the state of Israel recognizes as citizens depends on this oppression of one third of the population.
It’s vile, and we should have nothing to do with supporting it.
This is not a war between two countries, it’s an internal conflict and it’s never going to lead to a stable situation. The oppressors will slip up, and there will be violent outbursts.
@wr:
Hamas is the de facto government of Gaza. You may remember that Hamas was actually elected back in the day before murdering and driving all political opposition out of the strip soon after and taking over. Israel and the US call them a terrorist organization to deny them legitimacy, but the fact of the matter is that they are and have been the government of Gaza since 2007.
It’s true they fight like terrorists, but that is a matter of tactics. Hamas is more like ISIS, which also governed territory, albeit for a much shorter span of time. How was ISIS defeated? How would you define their destruction? Or any organization that controls and governs territory?
@just nutha:
Then what is your alternative? If you have some other option that will achieve a different government in Gaza, then lets hear it. Otherwise, the alternative is that Hamas remains the government in Gaza, which I think would all agree would be bad considering they don’t have a stellar track record.
@Gustopher:
Israeli society was divided, and Bibi was on the ropes. Hamas goes in and butchers the most left-wing, peacenik Israelis.
Yeah, it flipped the chessboard! It united Israel, gave Bibi a lifeline, put a nail in the coffin of the political left-wing on Palestinian engagement that was begun by the 2nd Intifada. It’s killed any hope of a two-state solution for the foreseeable future. Great Job Hamas!
See point #1 – Hamas fucked things up so badly that the Abraham Accords look pretty secure, actually. Arab governments have hardly criticized Israel, the larger, regional war didn’t happen. There are tons of leaks that Arab governments want Israel to finish Hamas off. The muted response in the Arab street to tens of thousands of Palestinian deaths speaks volumes.
Don’t forget about all the Jew-adjacent people. Those Thai guest workers and others need beheading and raping too, you know.
The people of Gaza are not Israeli, and they are not Israel’s responsibility. Israel has not occupied Gaza since it pulled out its settlements and left almost two decades ago. Hamas quickly took over and has dedicated itself to attacking Israel ever since. It’s Hamas who has squandered the aid and resources in its desire for eternal war against the Jews.
Gaza is dirt poor because the human capital there is wasted by Hamas on war preparations instead of building a functioning civil society, education, and all the rest. The responsibility for the shit conditions in Gaza rests with Hamas, not Israel.
Israel didn’t bomb Gaza for shits and giggles; it bombed Gaza in response to Hamas attacks.
If Israel can weaken Hamas enough or destroy it, then maybe the people of Gaza can get a more sane government that is not dedicated to starting futile wars.
If you don’t want Israel to bomb Gaza, then you really should complain about the government of Gaza attacking Israel. And if you really don’t like the “open-air prison” conditions in Gaza, then the same thing applies – Israel – like every other country on the planet – is not going to have open borders with a territory governed by a genocidal death cult that is bent on murdering its citizens.
@Andy:
Who controls what can be imported into Gaza?
Israel.
If I locked you in a cell and slid food into the cell through a slot in the door, would you be self-governing? How about if there were several people in the cell, and one proclaimed themselves Emperor for Life?
I’d still be in charge. And ultimately it would be my responsibility that you were locked in with the Emperor for Life.
We see this play out in prisons across the country, and it takes a particularly evil Clarence to say that prison conditions are not covered by the constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
The most left-wing, peacenik Israelis were entirely comfortable with a status quo in which someone else suffers.
Without getting into collective guilt, as I am sitting on stolen Native American land thumbing this out on an iPhone made by enslaved Umpa Lunpas or whatever (is it still made in China, or did they move production to Vietnam or somewhere else cheaper and more willing to look the other way when Apple’s wholly separate subcontractors violate Apple policy and human rights?), there’s the simple fact that nothing is changing.
The best citizens Israel has to offer are ok with 1/3 of the population being between second class and non-citizens and garbage. They might “care” but it’s not a priority.
If Israel wants peace, they’re going to have to get involved with that 1/3 of their population. Whether they want that 1/3 to remain under Israeli state control, or whether they want them as neighbors that they just don’t like but aren’t killing each other. A Marshall Plan for the Mideast.
Much as in the US, we have to drag the rural areas and the dead end states along and upwards — something we haven’t been doing well enough for the past few decades. Or like how we need a stable and prosperous Mexico to reduce the pressures on our southern border. And ideally a stable and prosperous Central America in general, but if the immigrants and refugees stopped in Mexico, that might be good enough.
Or Israel can be an oppressive, terrorist state, subjecting a third of its population to terrible conditions and nervously waiting for their hold to slip, where a traumatized disfavored population goes for revenge. I don’t think it’s in American interests to be anywhere near that shit show. There are lots of other brutal terrorist states in the region we can cozy up to.
@Andy: Guilty as charged! There probably isn’t any alternative to continued Hamas misrule. But my 3 comparisons aren’t about “alternatives” to begin with. They’re examples of stupid/unworkable proposals, just like “destroy Hamas.” Stop believing that all problems can be solved with enough resolve/firepower.
ETA: And “destroy Hamas” actually IS cut from the same cloth as “nation building.” Think deeper.
@Andy:
And starving children to death (along with their parents) accomplishes this… how?
Hamas is utterly evil. If Israel were actually attacking Hamas, there wouldn’t be a problem.
@Andy:
FTFY. Oh, and not just “bombed”. Cut off the food and water, too.
@Andy: “Hamas is the de facto government of Gaza”
Sure, but it’s pretty clearly dead as a governing entity. The leaders are in hiding, they have no control over the civilian population, and there’s no chance they will be allowed to take control of the levers of government again. So Hamas as the de facto government is indeed destroyed. The parallel to the destruction of Isis is valid — and it has been accomplished.
So how does Israel destroy what is left — which is essentially a band of terrible people who hate Israel and a toxic ideology? Killing more civilians? Blowing up more hospitals? How does that lead to anywhere other than a regrowth of Hamas?
@DrDaveT:
As I keep pointing out, everyone except me and a handful of others is in agreement that civilians in Gaza should not be allowed to flee the battlespace – an aspect of this conflict that is unique compared to any recent urban war, and one that ensures those civilians will be in harms way.
Hamas is hiding in, under, and among the civilian population. Part of their “evil” strategy is to create martyrs that useful idiots will then blame entirely on Israel.
That’s one of several reasons I think civilians need to be allowed to leave if they want to, as the civilian population can and does in every other conflict. It would certainly be logistically much easier to provide aid and other needs in a safe third country rather than in the middle of a war zone. And that would deny Hamas the ability to hide behind the population.
@wr:
Who, exactly, is going to prevent Hamas from governing again? Sure, their leaders are in hiding now because the Israeli military has invaded. And they can’t govern now, because, again, the Israeli military invaded.
That’s not going to last forever. When Israel pulls out of Gaza, if Hamas is still around, who is going to stop them from reasserting control if their leadership and most of their infrastructure remains intact?