The Middle East is again in crisis, and the Biden administration was caught flat-footed.
On Sept. 29, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told a conference hosted by the liberal Atlantic magazine: “The Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades.”
Eight days later, Hamas attacked Israel.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn has called for Sullivan’s removal.
The buck, however, doesn’t stop in Sullivan’s office but in another down the hall, the one that’s oval.
There is no doubt Sullivan was repeating President Joe Biden’s view of the Middle East and that of his entire administration, including what the intelligence community was reporting.
In due course, America (and Israel, which also missed the terrorist onslaught) will need a full accounting of how multiple intelligence agencies failed to detect preparations for the horror unleashed Oct. 7.
Right now, we need urgent review of what else might have been missed, especially whether there are operations against the United States or other allies we must work to prevent.
We also need to reverse Biden’s strategic calculus for the Middle East, which has once again proven completely wrong.
The fundamental misperception, which pervades all aspects of regional policy, is that the mullahs leading Iran can be negotiated into civilized behavior.
They can be persuaded to renounce their three-decade-long quest for deliverable nuclear weapons, say Biden and his advisers.
They will see the light and give up their own state terrorism, perpetrated by the Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force, and their sponsorship of terrorist groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthi rebels and Iraqi Shia militias.
To achieve this goal, Biden has pursued a policy of appeasement toward Tehran.
From day one of his presidency, his negotiators have made concession after concession to get back into the fatally flawed 2015 nuclear agreement.
That deal, one of the worst diplomatic mistakes in US history, was negotiated by many of the same people Biden hired to steer his Iran policy.
There is substantial evidence that an Iranian influence operation penetrated Team Biden, the full consequences of which are as yet unknown.
Rob Malley, Biden’s chief Iran negotiator, had his security clearance suspended by the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security in April, and the matter may be under FBI investigation.
Of course, Biden and his top advisers were already so favorably disposed toward Iran that Tehran may not have needed to bother infiltrating his government.
Other evidence of appeasement abounds, including weakening the enforcement of economic sanctions, particularly against the export of Iranian oil to countries like China, reimposed on Iran in 2019 after the Trump administration withdrew from the nuclear deal.
The most recent display of Biden on bended knee to the ayatollahs was the unfreezing of $6 billion in exchange for five American hostages Iran illegitimately held.
That act of human trafficking contravened decades of US policy not to engage in hostage ransoms or exchanges and undoubtedly impressed the Tehran regime that Biden is an extraordinarily weak and needy president.
By adding $6 billion of fungible assets to Iran’s balance sheet, Biden underlined that he simply has no idea what the Islamic Revolution actually respects and fears.
Hamas, Iran’s terrorist surrogate, is about to experience what the ayatollahs do fear, namely targeted application of a wide scope of military force, from conventional combat arms to cyberwarfare.
Iran has long armed and equipped, trained and advised, financed and protected both Hamas and Hezbollah.
In recent years, these and other terrorist groups were forged into a “ring of fire” around Israel, a strategy conceived by former Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani, who received an early departure in January 2020, courtesy of the United States.
Hamas and Hezbollah have their own agendas, to be sure, but they are threats to Israel, America and others today principally because of Iran.
Fearful that once Americans realize the truth, they will make Biden pay a political price next November, Biden’s advisers have pushed back against the idea Iran is responsible for Hamas’ actions Oct. 7 and thereafter.
The coming days and weeks will bring more evidence of Iran’s responsibility, but the strategic facts are already clear.
Biden may fear acting, but Israel is about to show him how to treat Iran and its outriders.
John Bolton was national security adviser to President Donald Trump, 2018-19, and US ambassador to the United Nations, 2005-06.