In the first week of October, the Democratic presidential candidate, Kamala Harris, said that Iran is the “obvious” answer when asked about the country she considers to be the U.S.’s “greatest adversary.”
Presumably, Harris’s Democratic pollsters and campaign strategists concluded she could no longer rely on the support of Arab-Americans. So, the goal became to out-trump Trump in geopolitics. As a result, Harris is attracting neoconservative uber-interventionists like former Vice President Dick Cheney, while her party blocked Palestinian-Americans from appearing on the convention stage to address Israel’s genocidal atrocities in Gaza.
In the CBS interview, Harris said "Iran has American blood on their hands – this attack on Israel, 200 ballistic missiles.” She added: “What we need to do [is] to ensure that Iran never achieves the ability to be a nuclear power. That is one of my highest priorities.”
Building on the broad U.S.-Israel military collaboration, such priorities are setting a stage to a potential great power conflict in the region.
Weapons for Oil
Between 1946 and 2023, the U.S. provided a whopping $373 billion in foreign assistance to the Middle East, which makes it the largest regional recipient of U.S. economic and security assistance in the world. The bulk of the aid has also been directed to just a few countries: Israel, Egypt, Jordan and more recently Iraq. For 50 years, these policies have failed to contain the Israel/Palestine conflict.
Figure 1 U.S. Foreign Aid by Region: 1946–2020
* Current U.S. dollars in billions, obligations.
Source: State Department, USAID, and Defense Department
In the past, U.S. military aid to Israel amounted to $3.8 billion per year; last year, it soared to $18 billion. Despite pledges of transparency, the Biden-Harris administration has not disclosed its true scale. In the Gaza Strip and possibly in southern Lebanon, this aid has made the U.S. complicit in genocidal atrocities.
When President Biden withdrew his campaign and Vice-President Harris took over in early August, Harris had barely a 0.8% lead over Trump. This edge peaked at 3.5% following a costly political marketing blitz in late August. Since then, it has more than halved to 1.4%. Taking into consideration the margin for error, the race is now effectively a tie. A region-wide war in the Middle East is the last thing the Democratic White House needs just two weeks before the U.S. presidential election.
Hence, the timing of the Netanyahu cabinet’s Iran retaliation.
Figure 2 The Race for the White House
Source: FiveThirtyEight, Oct 27, 2024
Israel-Iran: The First Round
On Saturday, Israel hit Iran with a series of airstrikes, ostensibly targeting military sites in retaliation for the 180 missiles that Iran fired into Israel over three weeks ago (which itself was a reprisal against a prior Israeli offensive).
At first, it was portrayed as a “carefully orchestrated, underwhelming retaliation.” Presumably, portions of Iranian military sites in three provinces – Tehran, Ilam and Khuzestan – were hit. Iran said its air defenses were successful and damage was estimated as “limited.”
Yet later, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) stated the targets were “missile manufacturing facilities used to produce the missiles that Iran fired at the state of Israel over the last year.” It also hit surface-to-air missile sites and “additional Iranian aerial capabilities.” Subsequently, the Israeli Air Force claimed that these attacks had destroyed “the backbone of Iran's missile industry,” a critical component of its ballistic missile program.
"U.S. complicity in Israel's aggression early on Saturday is crystal clear for us," said Iran’s foreign minister Syed Abbas on Sunday. A charge that the Biden administration denied. In reality, Israel’s reprisals are increasingly proxy wars. After all, the attack involved Israel’s most-advanced aerial weapon, F-35 jet fighters – made largely in the U.S. and bought with U.S. military aid – which are adept at evading radar. Their primary targets? Iran’s Russian-made S-300 batteries.
The fact that an even more devastating retaliation did not happen is likely a direct outcome of hard American pressure. After all, the initial Israeli retaliation plan was leaked, which undermined the promised devastating attack. Those plans were likely buried under U.S. pressure.
However, the targets struck were sophisticated equipment that Iran could not produce on its own and reportedly had to be purchased from China.
Presidential campaigns and China: Iran and Gaza
Both Harris and Trump think that the United States should prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. Both criticize what they call "Iran’s destabilizing actions" across the region. After Israel’s latest retaliatory strike against Iran on October 26, both expressed support for Israel’s right to defend itself against threats posed by Iran.
Like the Global South, China believes Iran has the right for the peaceful deployment of nuclear power. Beijing sees Iran’s military actions as mainly defensive. It is Israel’s disproportionate actions in Gaza and southern Lebanon, with the support of U.S. weapons, funds, intelligence and logistics, that have destabilized the region. Like Israel, Iran has a right to defend itself. Yet, de-escalation would serve all stakeholders best.
Both Harris and Trump are calling for the war in Gaza to come to an end, ceasefire and a hostage deal, while pledging to sustain the flow of U.S. weapons into the region, which contributes to the escalation ladder. Trump pledges Israel's “victory” and overnight end to hostilities without offering much detail.
Unlike Harris and Trump, China does not believe that the incessant flow of American weapons into the region and has pushed for ceasefire, freeing of the hostages and overall de-escalation since early October. Beijing is warning about the rising risks of regional escalation.
China's development vs Biden's "grand bargain"
In addition to investing significantly in countries in which the U.S. is known for its military aid and regime change operations, Beijing has diffused tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia, unified Palestinian forces and launched a historic strategic partnership with Egypt.
In mid-August, Beijing sent an even stronger signal about its commitment by establishing a Second Silk Road in the region on the brink of all-out war.
China has exclusive rights to several Iranian oil and natural gas fields. As part of a 2016–2017 agreement, Beijing cautioned it would regard any foreign attack on these areas as attacks on its own sovereign territory.
Two years later, Iran joined China’s Belt and Road (BRI) initiative. In March 2021, the two countries signed a 25-year strategic cooperation agreement worth $400 billion. The launch of another Silk Road ensued after major Chinese investments in Saudi Arabian stocks and the signing of memorandums of understanding worth $50 billion with six major Chinese financial institutions.
The Biden administration wants a “grand bargain” that would eject China out from the region. By contrast, regional powers – from Saudi Arabia and Egypt to Iran – want to foster development with China. To them, the Biden proposition makes no economic sense.
Regional escalation
Both Harris and Trump support efforts to advance normalization and regional integration deals like the proposed Israel-Saudi normalization accord. China supports efforts at lasting and just peace, based on stability and development.
Although Harris prefers the term “Israeli-Saudi normalization,” while Trump favors the “Abraham Accords,” both seek to weaponize the proposed grand bargain in the Middle East. They hope to turn it into an extension of the Indo-Pacific front seeking to contain China’s rise. Ultimately, the goal is to sustain U.S. hegemony, even when economic conditions no longer support it.
The bottom line: If Harris wins the U.S. election, the Netanyahu cabinet will face some constraints. If Trump emerges as the winner, Netanyahu is likely to see it as a carte blanche for a broad-scale Iran attack.
Currently, both Israel and the U.S. share the ultimate objective of destabilizing Iran. These goals were developed in the U.S. over two decades ago. The question is not “what” and “why,” but “when” and “how.” Nonetheless, such policies go diametrically against the long-term interests of the regional economies, China and the Global South at large.
The Middle East is now at a crossroads. Whatever will happen in the coming weeks could have not just regional but global repercussions.
On the broader context of regional escalation, see Dr Steinbock’s just-released The Fall of Israel: https://www.claritypress.com/product/the-fall-of-israel/
