Sunday’s UNSC Meeting On Iran-Israel Was “A Parade Of Hypocrisy”
The West’s “parade of hypocrisy” at the UNSC was meant to facilitate Bibi’s reportedly requested climbdown, though he might exploit his newfound position to extract tangible concessions from the US in order to not ruin Biden’s re-election bid.
Russian Permanent Representative to the UN Vasily Nebenzia said during Sunday’s UNSC meeting on Iran and Israel that the entire event is just a “parade of hypocrisy”. He called the West out for its blatant double standards in declining to condemn Israel’s bombing of the Iranian consulate in Damascus earlier this month that provoked the Islamic Republic to retaliate in self-defense over the weekend. In his words, “[this] is so gross that even being an onlooker feels embarrassing.”
He then elaborated on how Israel’s refusal to cease its war on Hamas in compliance with last month’s UNSC Resolution 2728 has perpetuated the conflict and disrespects all of the Council’s members. Nebenzia hinted that this might have emboldened Israel to bomb the Iranian consulate in Damascus and then warned that Tel Aviv’s possible response to Tehran’s retaliation “risks escalating to a region-wide confrontation.” He then called for “the spiral of confrontation and bloodshed” to immediately stop.
The Russian Representative approvingly noted “Tehran's signal that Iran does not want to further escalate hostilities with Israel” and accordingly “urge[d] West Jerusalem to follow suit and abandon the practice of provocative forceful acts in the Middle East”. If it’s any reassurance, reports have claimed that Biden told Bibi that the US won’t participate in any offensive Israeli operations against Iran, and Bibi also allegedly called off such an attack right after the retaliation once he finished talking to Biden that night.
Nobody should be misled into thinking that Biden’s motives are noble, however, since his administration actually detests Bibi’s as was argued at length here when analyzing why Biden endorsed Schumer’s call for regime change against Bibi in mid-March. Meanwhile, this analysis here from a week prior to the previous one touches on the Democrats’ electoral interests in these calculations, namely the need to belatedly appear “tough” on Israel in order to prevent some of their base from defecting in November.
A large-scale conflict of the sort that could explode if Israel escalates with Iran – perhaps due to Bibi wanting to “save face” after its retaliation, distract from his collective punishment of the Palestinians, and/or rally Israelis around his unpopular government – would greatly harm the Democrats. The predictably resultant oil price spike, similarly foreseeable Congressional aid to Israel that could total tens of billions of dollars just like Ukraine’s, and risk of mission creep would fuel anti-incumbency sentiment.
At the same time, just like Zelensky is practically holding Biden’s re-election bid hostage by threatening to strike more Russian oil refineries if the Congressional deadlock over Ukraine aid isn’t soon resolved, so too could Bibi threaten something similar in exchange for unilateral concessions from the US. By holding the Damocles’ sword of an uncontrollable escalation scenario over America’s head, he could try to coerce more robust “containment” measures from it and support for clandestine operations inside Iran.
The US is preparing to “Pivot (back) to Asia” upon the inevitable end of the NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine, whenever that might be, so being dragged back into West Asia out of fear that failing to do so could lead to Bibi tanking Biden’s re-election bid as explained would complicate its grand strategic goals. Just like Iran sought to restore the balance of power between itself and Israel through its retaliation, so too is Bibi trying to restore a similar such balance between himself and Biden.
The escalating Bibi-Biden rivalry is therefore as destabilizing as the escalating Israeli-Iranian one is, with these two interconnected rivalries creating a complicated escalation matrix, one in which Bibi holds disproportionate power due to Israel’s unique spoiler role. The West’s “parade of hypocrisy” at the UNSC was meant to facilitate Bibi’s reportedly requested climbdown, though he might exploit his newfound position to extract tangible concessions from the US in order to not ruin Biden’s re-election bid.