
Why the fate of Middle East will depend on who wins the US election
Anticipation is now building for the potential of a full Israeli ground invasion. It is not, however, only what happens in the next few days and weeks that is terrifying the Biden administration.
For all of Harris's lip service about standing up to Iranian aggression, her team has a distinctively different record.
Her current national security advisor Phil Gordon previously played a crucial role in designing President Obama's Middle East policy – a time when U.S.-Israel relations were historically toxic and Iran's aggression was on the ascent.
Gordon's approach has been to engage Tehran and restrain Jerusalem.
The Islamic Republic will see a potential negotiating partner in a President Harris – and far-left Democrats like Senator Bernie Sanders and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will try to push the inexperienced new president into an even more anti-Israel direction.
For months inside the Biden-Harris administration, an intense policy debate has been raging – pitting the President's national security team against the Vice President's foreign policy advisors.
On one side is Biden's national security advisor Jake Sullivan and his team who are obsessed with 'de-escalation' of the conflict between Israel and its Iranian-backed enemies, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis in Yemen, and Iran-backed militias in Iraq.
At times, Biden has forced the Israelis to rein in their response to attacks and withheld or delayed the delivery of crucial weapons systems and bombs.
All of this has emboldened Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei.
But the president frequently stood by Israel in the face of withering criticism from the left flank of his party, sent US carrier strike groups to the waters near Iran and assembled an impressive coalition of Middle Eastern partners, including Jordan and Saudi Arabia, to help defend Israel against Tehran's April 13 drone and missile attack.
It's a mixed record, for sure.
But, for Israel, it's better than the alternative.
Israel will view Harris's impending election as a signal that they have less than 90 days to severely degrade their regional enemies.
At FDD, we have long warned about supreme leader Khamenei's decades-long strategy to drive American forces out of the Middle East, surround Israel with its terrorist proxy armies and destroy the world's only Jewish state.