Donald Trump dreamed of the “deal of the century” in the Middle East to overcome the nagging Palestinian question. The Biden administration, on the other hand, displays a modesty that risks causing just as much frustration: it only claims to limit the damage. This is the lesson of the eleven-day war between Israel and the armed factions in Gaza, suspended by a ceasefire, on the night of May 20-21. During this period, the White House seemed successively behind, embarrassed and even at odds with its own commitments, on the place of human rights in its foreign policy.
After a long week of passivity, his diplomatic intervention claimed to confirm the formula “America is back”, prized by Joe Biden. In appearance only. For the concern for a cessation of hostilities is not, for the moment, accompanied by the slightest relaunch of the untraceable “peace process”. By resigning himself to raising his voice towards the Israeli ally, Joe Biden rather confirms a desire to avoid in a region where the United States has invested money in for decades: the Middle East.
A passage from the interim strategic vision, published at the beginning of March, summarized this approach, in no way improvised. “We do not believe that military force is the answer to the challenges of the region, and we will not give our partners in the Middle East a blank check for pursuing policies at odds with American interests and our values.”, indicates the Democratic administration.
“The degree of American involvement, with the fear that a regional escalation reinforces the tendency to disengagement instead of reversing it”, Charles Thépaut, researcher
A certain spleen has also seized the experts of the region who gravitate in the federal capital, according to Charles Thépaut, researcher at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a Washington think tank. “Frustration and uncertainty reign because they know that the region is no longer a priority”, he explains. “This frustration does not target political choices as such”, he wants to clarify, “But the degree of American involvement, with the fear that a regional escalation, as in Iraq with the Shiite militias or with Russia or Turkey in northeastern Syria”, where American special forces are stationed, “Reinforces the tendency to disengage instead of reversing it”.
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