Rafah red line: The push-me-pull-you geopolitical balance is intensely difficult for Biden right now
Setting red lines is all very well, as long as you follow through when they are crossed. President Joe Biden knows that all too well.
But he also knows that if he follows through on this big new red line of withholding offensive weapons for Israel it could cost him dearly domestically.
The push-me-pull-you balance of geopolitics and domestic politics is intensely difficult right now for the American president.
Gaza latest: Follow live updates
I’ll break this down into two parts. The politics in a moment. First the challenges of red lines.
Western leaders throw them down in interviews, like Mr Biden’s pronouncement on CNN last night, as unequivocal threats. “Cross the line, if you dare!” is the rhetoric.
But too often they turn out to be flawed tools of geo-political diplomacy.
Barack Obama set a chemical weapons red line with Syria’s Bashar al Assad in 2012. He walked right through it.
Vladimir Putin remembered that when he walked through a red line Mr Biden had set on Ukraine in 2021. Mr Putin invaded. The rest is history.
Every red line is distinct, of course, and they vary in terms of the gravity of the event they are seeking to prevent.
But the principle behind laying them is the same, as is the message set when they are crossed.
Read more:
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Joe Biden with Vladimir Putin during their meeting in Moscow in 2011. Pic: AP
Biden’s frustration with Netanyahu
Over the past six months, as Israel has sought to defeat Hamas in Gaza, President Biden didn’t think he’d need to lay out red lines. After all, Israel is one of America’s closest allies.
Instead, the Biden administration thought gentle diplomacy and frank back-channels with a “close friend of America” would do the trick.
But gradually, as Mr Biden and the Netanyahu government increasingly diverged on protecting civilians and a plan for “the day after” in Gaza, a red line began to appear – Rafah.
This has become Mr Biden’s red line for Israel.
The American president has repeatedly made clear his opposition to Mr Netanyahu’s insistence on a ground invasion of the southern Gazan city (Mr Netanyahu’s own red line) where about 1.4 million people are living, half of them under 18.
Smoke rises from Rafah after an Israeli airstrike on the Gaza city this week. Pic: AP
The Israeli military has not (yet) moved into Rafah city but is instead concentrating its operations to the east of the city and around the crossing to Egypt.
That fact has allowed the Biden administration to claim its red line hasn’t yet been crossed. “They didn’t describe it as a major ground operation,” spokesman John Kirby said this week.
Sometimes, red lines are smashed through. Sometimes, they are gradually chipped away at.
To counter the chipping Mr Netanyahu has been doing for weeks, Mr Biden hardened his red line.
“I made it clear that if they go into Rafah – they haven’t gone in Rafah yet – if they go into Rafah, I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities – that deal with that problem,” he told CNN.
A significant admission
That he has personally admitted what was already a fact – that American weapons have killed thousands of civilians – is significant.
But there is important nuance in his red line.
He’s talking about stopping the delivery of offensive weapons for the type of operations that have flattened much of Gaza and could do the same to Rafah.
He is not threatening to cut Israel off from all US weapons, of course not.
Defensive weapons to counter Iranian proxy rockets will keep coming. As will long-range weapons and jets to counter Iran. None of that will stop being delivered.
Still, it’s a big shift for Biden. It’s not been done before and symbolically for Israel, in the middle of its longest and most critical war, it looks terrible.
The domestic political risks
And that brings us to the domestic politics of all this.
For every lever of influence Mr Biden pulls (and he’s seen they have their limited use) there is a domestic political calculus.
Pretty much all Republicans are against every lever; they want nothing less than unequivocal support for Israel.
More than that though – a significant number of his own Democrats will also be uneasy about America limiting weapons for Israel.
But critical voters in key states are very pro-Palestine. President Biden isn’t oblivious to their cry “Genocide Joe!”
It is a perilous political push-me-pull-you and the election is six months away.
This is the highest stakes diplomacy via social media.
The American president just posted on his Truth Social platform: “We know exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding.
“He is an easy target, but is safe there – We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now. But we don’t want missiles shot at civilians, or American soldiers.
“Our patience is wearing thin. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
Israel-Iran live: Trump says US knows where Iran’s supreme leader is ‘hiding’
It was followed minutes later by “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!”
In real-time, we are witnessing Donald Trump’s extreme version of maximum pressure diplomacy.
He’d probably call it the ‘art of the deal’, but bunker busters are the tool, and it comes with such huge consequences, intended and unintended, known and unknown.
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The bunker buster bomb which could destroy Iran’s nuclear ambitions
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Nuclear sites targeted in Iran
There is intentional ambiguity in the president’s messaging. His assumption is that he can apply his ‘art of the deal’ strategy to a deeply ideological geopolitical challenge.
It’s all playing out publicly. Overnight, the New York Times, via two of its best-sourced reporters, had been told that Mr Trump is weighing whether to use B-2 aircraft to drop bunker-busting bombs on Iran’s underground nuclear facilities.
Meanwhile, Axios was reporting that a meeting is possible between Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi.
The reporting came just as Mr Trump warned “everyone in Tehran to evacuate”. The nuclear sites being threatened with bunker busters are not in Tehran, but Trump’s words are designed to stoke tension, to confuse and to apply intense pressure.
His actions are too. He left the G7 in Canada early and asked his teams to gather in the White House Situation Room.
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Trump: ‘I want an end, not a ceasefire’
This is a game of smoke, mirrors, brinkmanship and – maybe – bluff. In Tehran, what’s left of the leadership is watching and reading closely as they consider what’s next.
Maybe the Supreme Leader and his regime’s days are numbered. Things remain very unpredictable.
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
From history, though, regime change, even when it comes with a plan – and there is certainly not one here, spells civil war and from that comes a refugee crisis.
These are truly tense and chaotic times.
World
Ukraine war: 14 killed as Russian missile and drone attacks strike Kyiv – including American citizen
Russian missile and drone attacks have killed 14 people in Kyiv overnight, according to Ukrainian officials.
A 62-year-old US citizen who suffered shrapnel wounds is among the dead.
At least 99 others were wounded in strikes that hollowed out a residential building and destroyed dozens of apartments.
Pic: AP
Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble.
Images show a firefighter was among those hurt, with injured residents evacuated from their homes.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the attack as “one of the most terrifying attacks on Kyiv” – and said Russian forces had fired 440 drones and 32 missiles as civilians slept in their homes.
“[Putin] wants the war to go on,” he said. “It is troubling when the powerful of this world turn a blind eye to it.”
Pic: AP
Ukraine’s interior minister, Ihor Klymenko, said 27 locations across the capital have been hit – including educational institutions and critical infrastructure.
He claimed the attack, in the early hours of Tuesday morning, was one of the largest on the capital since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022.
Drones swarmed over the city, with an air raid alert remaining in force for seven hours.
One person was killed and 17 others injured as a result of separate Russian drone strikes in the port city of Odesa.
Pic: Reuters
It comes as the G7 summit in Canada continues, which Ukraine’s leader is expected to attend.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy was due to hold talks with Donald Trump – but the president has announced he is unexpectedly returning to Washington because of tensions in the Middle East.
Ukraine’s foreign minister says Moscow’s decision to attack Kyiv during the summit is a signal of disrespect to the US.
Moscow has launched a record number of drones and missiles in recent weeks, and says the attacks are in retaliation for a Ukrainian operation that targeted warplanes in airbases deep within Russian territory.
Kyiv’s mayor Vitali Klitschko says fires broke out in two of the city’s districts as a result of debris from drones shot down by the nation’s air defences.
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Pic: AP
On X, Ukraine’s foreign ministry wrote: “Russia’s campaign of terror against civilians continues. Its war against Ukraine escalates with increased brutality.
“The only way to stop Russia is tighter pressure – through sanctions, more defence support for Ukraine, and limiting Russia’s ability to keep sowing war.”
Olena Lapyshnak, who lived in one of the destroyed buildings, said: “It’s horrible, it’s scary, in one moment there is no life. I can only curse the Russians, that’s all I can say. They shouldn’t exist in this world.”
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