Last week, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin ordered two aircraft carrier strike groups to remain in the Middle East. The Pentagon had initially deployed the Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group into the Mediterranean to replace the Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group. The deployment has been billed as designed to deter an escalation of hostilities. But who are we trying to deter? To believe that two carrier strike groups have deployed to the region to deter both sides would be delusional. We are delivering a message only to Hezbollah, not Israel. Following the deployment – and under its implied cover – Israel launched a ‘preemptive’ strike (its own words) on Hezbollah positions. How, one might ask, do we prevent war if we deter only one side? It’s about time the White House ask itself ‘cui bono’, which side has the most to gain if the Lebanese-Israeli border war explodes into a large-scale regional war involving the United States?

Joe Biden appears to have drunk from the Kool-Aid poured by Henry Kissinger after the October/Yom Kippur War of 1973. Kissinger argued that we could only extract from Israel the concessions necessary to bring peace to the Middle East by making Israel overwhelmingly more powerful than any possible combination of its enemies in the region. Kissinger believed, perhaps sincerely, that this would give Israel the confidence to allow it to make the territorial concessions that are required to achieve peace in the region.

The late Martin Indyk’s book on Kissinger, ‘Master of the Game’, offers a detailed account of Kissinger’s diplomacy. He writes: “Therefore, he [Kissinger] introduced a so-called step-by-step approach, which was designed to buy Israel time – time to strengthen itself with American support, and time for the Arabs to exhaust themselves until they would come to accept Israel. And Israel would be strong enough to make the ultimate territorial concessions that could eventually lead to peace.”

Kissinger’s attempt to manipulate Israel then, failed as badly as Biden’s attempt to cajole Israel into a Gaza cease fire now. Both failed to realize that the Israeli leaders they dealt with, Yitzhak Rabin in the 1970’s and Benjamin ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu fifty years later, were politicians. Territorial concessions do not help win re-election. The American President who finally brokered Israel’s Peace Treaty with Egypt was Jimmy Carter, a Georgia peanut farmer who came into the White House totally devoid of foreign policy experience – the very antithesis of the polyglot, polymath, refined Henry Kissinger. We will never know what Carter told Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in their ‘walk in the woods’ at Camp David that compelled Begin’s capitulation; I doubt it was an appeal to Begin’s better nature.

Henry Kissinger’s self-confidence in his diplomatic skills probably blinded him to the realities as opposed to his aspirations for Israel. Has Biden’s four-decade commitment to the Zionist dream blinded him as well? U.S. forces have shot down Iranian and Houthi missiles; in Yemen we have bombed Houthi positions. Now we threaten Hezbollah and even Iran. But with Israel we remain silent even when Netanyahu openly threatens to attack Hezbollah and push it north of the Litani River, in other words, to occupy – again – parts of southern Lebanon. We dismiss the fact that both Hezbollah and the Houthis have explicitly stated that they will stop shooting when the fighting in Gaza stops. In contrast, Netanyahu has made it clear that he does not want the fighting to stop. Netanyahu’s terms, the eradication of Hamas and continued Israeli control of Gaza, make a cease fire impossible. We know that Bibi remains in power only at the mercy of two extortionist Israeli politicians, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir. Both have made it clear that they will bring him down if he stops the war before achieving their war aims, which include, apparently, driving Palestinians out of Palestine and gaining control of the Temple Mount.

Bibi needs to keep the war going as long as possible. He faces a trial and probable jail time if he falls from power. Netanyahu has demonstrated no concern for the well-being of Israelis, not for the hostages nor for the likely casualties of an expanded war. Yet we continue to coddle Netanyahu. We provide him with munitions desperately needed by Ukraine, a country that is truly fighting for its existence. We announced a $20 billion arms package while repeatedly sending Secretary of State Tony Blinken to humiliate himself begging Netanyahu for a cease fire.

Another thought occurred as I was writing. Biden has handed Netanyahu a powerful tool to change the course of American history. He has given Bibi the room to escalate the war at a time and manner of his choosing. Imagine for a second that in the third week of October Israel launches large scale ‘preemptive’ attacks against Iran and the IDF advances into Lebanon. Our actions, if not our words, have given Netanyahu the carte blanche to do so. Iran and its allied militias in Iraq and Syria will attack U.S. forces and we will be neck deep in full scale hostilities. Do you imagine Trump will pass up the opportunity to attack Biden for getting suckered into another war, a war that he will grandiosely claim would never have happened on his watch? What a wonderful cudgel with which to batter Kamala Harris. In fact, one is tempted to believe that Trump may have already whispered this possibility into Netanyahu’s ear. Ronald Reagan, did the same, asking the mullahs to delay the release of the hostages from the American Embassy in Iran until after Carter stepped down. History, as Will Rogers said, “may not repeat itself but it certainly rhymes.”