Biden moves goalposts on containing war as Israel invades Lebanon
Preventing the spread of war between Israel and militant groups to fronts beyond Gaza has been the Biden administration’s top Middle East policy priority for nearly a year, but Israeli forces have now pushed into Lebanon with Washington’s green light.
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Nearly a year after the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel, the Biden administration appears to have lost its grip on containing a wider regional war.
Iran launched some 180 ballistic missiles toward Israel on Tuesday in retaliation for Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah’s iconic leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' deputy operations commander, Abbas Nilforoushan, in surprise airstrikes south of Beirut last week.
Israeli officials may be downplaying the impacts of the Iranian retaliation, the second-ever such attack on Israel. Only one person was reported killed, but it did more damage than Iran's prior April 13 barrage.
