Seeking Certainty in an Uncertain Middle East

As Americans remember this week the victims of the September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda terror attacks on our country and Israelis mark more than 11 months since the Hamas terror attack, it is worth taking stock of the situation in the Middle East. This review reveals a concerning degree of uncertainty when it comes to fundamental questions related to the threats posed by Hamas, Hezbollah, and their terror patron in Tehran. Yet a review of what happened on October 7 and the months since then offers some clarity and a reminder of some things that, despite the uncertainties, remain certain.

On October 7, Hamas terrorists, who harbor a sick Islamist ideology that is simultaneously antisemitic, anti-Israel, and, let there be no doubt, anti-American, conducted a surprise terror attack against Israel, systematically assassinating and murdering men, women, and children in the most depraved ways imaginable.

It was the deadliest single day for Jews since the Holocaust. Along with our Israeli allies, Americans were killed and taken hostage, and some remain locked in Hamas terror tunnels in Gaza these many months later.

In retrospect, with the benefit of hindsight, Hamas’s actions should not have been a surprise. One need only read Hamas’s original charter and the propaganda its terrorists left behind on October 7 to understand that the terror group’s goals were — and remain — killing Jews and exterminating Israel — the world’s only Jewish state, a country roughly the size of New Jersey in a land where Jews first made their homes more than three millennia ago.

How did Israel respond to this October 7 terrorist atrocity? Israel has gone after those who committed the atrocity to ensure they can never do so again.

That should sound familiar. Israel responded in the same way Americans would have, and the same way Americans did, after another surprise terror attack: the 9/11 attack on the United States.

In the months since October 7, Israel confronted an adversary entrenched in hundreds of miles of terror tunnels that was systematically hiding and operating under and near civilians to save their own terrorist skins so they can kill again. Meanwhile, Hamas took deliberate actions to increase civilian casualties that could then be used as fodder in a political warfare campaign for the purpose of demonizing and isolating Israel in the United States and Europe and thereby trying to deprive Israel of the means of self-defense.

Not surprisingly, despite longstanding efforts, a ceasefire in Gaza remains elusive.

It remains to be seen whether this administration will use its leverage with Cairo to ensure that Hamas and other terror groups in Gaza cannot use arms smuggling under and over the border between Gaza and Egypt to rearm. There is a fundamental American interest in ensuring such an outcome. Let’s see whether this administration understands that reality and uses its leverage with Egypt.

We also see uncertainty with Hezbollah. Hezbollah started attacking Israel on October 8.

In Israel’s north, tens of thousands of Israelis remain displaced from their homes as the Israel Defense Forces and Hezbollah continue to trade attacks in a low-scale war that has been increasing in intensity. For now, at least, both sides seem to want to avoid an escalation to a major war, but such conflicts resist indefinite management and can easily spin out of control. But the status quo in Israel’s north seems untenable both from a political and a security perspective.

Israelis must be able to return to their homes, and that means pushing Hezbollah back. If the international community, the United Nations, UN peacekeepers, and key capitals, fail to enforce UN Security Council Resolution 1701, Israel may have no choice but to resort to a major war in Lebanon. Such a war would be far worse for Israel than what we have seen with Hamas, and the devastation in Lebanon could exceed some of what we have seen in Gaza.

American visitors to Israel in recent years have been accustomed to hearing Israelis start a briefing by asserting that they have three top priorities: Iran, Iran, and Iran. Yet, these days, most of the talk is of Hamas, Hezbollah, and now the Houthis.

That is a serious mistake.

Iran wants to use its terror proxies to distract, wear down, and bleed Israel even as Tehran inches toward a nuclear weapon.

And between the American presidential election in November and the January 20 inauguration of the new president, there is a particular window of danger, as Orde Kittrie, Behnam Ben Taleblu, and I detailed in an FDD monograph published on August 29. If the United States does not pursue specific deterrent steps in the coming weeks, Tehran could pursue significant additional steps toward a nuclear weapon or even sprint to a nuclear bomb to present the next American president with a fait accompli.

The essence of strategy is making priorities, and the number one threat to Israel and to U.S. interests in the Middle East is the Islamic Republic of Iran and its progress toward a nuclear weapon. Yet, our conversations, our policies, and our allocation of finite resources sometimes do not reflect that fact.

So, we see lots of questions and lots of uncertainty. But a few things, at least from my perspective, are certain.

The United States and Israel enjoy a uniquely deep, broad, and enduring relationship that transcends parties and administrations. Israel is the United States’ closest and most reliable ally in the Middle East. And the United States is Israel’s indispensable ally.

All of Israel’s enemies are America’s enemies, and Washington has no more capable or determined ally than Israel when it comes to going after that subset of U.S. adversaries, including the Islamic Republic of Iran and its terror network — some of whom have repeatedly attacked U.S. forces in the Red Sea and in Iraq, Syria, and Jordan.

At a time when China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea are cooperating in troubling new ways to target the United States, our allies, and our interests, it is good and necessary to have friends, and Israel is among America’s best friends.

What’s also certain is that helping Israel is not charity. It is a wise investment in our own national security interests. And the capabilities Israel is developing today, in many cases, are exactly the kinds of capabilities American forces will need in the Indo-Pacific and elsewhere in the future.

That is why efforts such as the U.S.-Israel Operations-Technology Working Group are so important. The working group, which was authorized by Congress and established in November 2021, focuses on joint Pentagon and Ministry of Defense science and technology research and development to ensure neither military ever confronts better-armed adversaries. Areas of focus include artificial intelligence/autonomy, directed energy, counter-unmanned aerial systems, biotechnology, integrated network systems-of-systems, and hypersonic capabilities.

So, as we remember and honor those who died on 9/11 and 10/7, let’s speak the truth about our adversaries, stand by our friends in their moment of need, and work with each other to prevent such terror attacks in the future.

Bradley Bowman is senior director of the Center on Military Political Power (CMPP) at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). For more from Bradley and CMPP, please subscribe HERE. Follow Bradley on X @Brad_L_Bowman. Follow FDD on X @FDD and @FDD_CMPP. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focused on national security and foreign policy. This Insight was adapted from introductory remarks that Bradley delivered at FDD on September 10, 2024.