Tension in the Middle East rises with each passing hour awaiting Israel’s promised reprisal against Iran for the Oct. 1 missile attack. Washington is attempting to temper that reaction.
The goals are simple: to avoid a broader regional war in the Middle East and to avoid drawing the U.S. into the conflict at all costs.
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On Path to the Polls this week, I’ll talk with Nancy Soderberg, a former UN Ambassador and expert on American foreign relations.
We know, it is no secret Jerusalem pledged its reprisal would be significant. What remains to be seen is if the Biden administration has any influence over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
There is some debate as to whether Netanyahu is even listening to President Joe Biden. The administration has been quite vocal and opposed to targeting Iran’s nuclear or oil production sites.
Those privy to discussions believe that amid the coordination efforts between the U.S. and Israel, and even with the disagreements, the two nations are generally on the same page regarding the strategic challenges in the Middle East.
Then there is another school of thought that Biden is just muddling through and has no grand plan. And not just in the Middle East, by the way. With Ukraine as well.
It raises the question, does the administration have the will or discipline to direct either Ukraine or Israel? If that’s true it raises a big question about the decline of United States ambition when it comes to its place in the world’s structure.
Makes you wonder about the calls in the U.S. for D.C. to develop an “independent” foreign policy -- independent of Ukraine and Israel.
But, what if, as suggested in a recent article in “The Guardian,” that interpretation is too, shall we say, benign? Does it underestimate what Washington really intends?
Maybe, as that article suggests, Washington is moving to reshape the balance of world power and is trying to do something history-making. It’s called “comprehensive revisionism” and the strategy to make that come about is tension. Interesting, huh?!
What does that mean? Well, basically, overturning the current state of things.
And that brings me to Donald Trump. You know his view: “Make America Great Again.” That’s “revisionist.” Nothing about it is playing by the existing rules of the game. Trump breaks the rules all the time.
Look, we just learned in Bob Woodward’s book that he was secretly sending Russian President Vladimir Putin COVID tests during the pandemic when there was a shortage. Though Trump denies it. And he reportedly continued to talk to Putin after he was out of office.
His challenger in the bid for the White House, Vice President Kamala Harris says, “He (Trump) admires strong men, and he gets played by them because he thinks that they’re his friends, and they are manipulating him full time and manipulating him by flattery and with favor."
I’ll explore all that and more with Soderberg on this week’s edition of “Path to the Polls.” Watch live on News4JAX+ at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday or our encore presentation at 7 p.m. Tuesday. You can also watch any time on demand on News4JAX+, News4JAX.com and YouTube.