How Should the U.S. Respond to a Middle East Crisis Threatening Its Policy and Personnel?

The October 7 Hamas attacks in southern Israel created an immediate crisis for the President Joseph R. Biden Jr. administration’s policy of promoting greater regional integration and upholding stability and security in the Middle East. That agenda is coming under intensified pressure, most dramatically by the killing of three U.S. service personnel and the wounding of dozens more by a drone strike in Jordan that the White House blames on Iranian-backed militias. In two other key regional flashpoints, Biden’s goals are being pressured by friend and foe alike. Israel is pressing an ultimatum for Hezbollah to withdraw its key forces from southern Lebanon or face an all-out attack. And Yemen’s Houthis continue to threaten commercial shipping in the Red Sea and launch missiles in the direction of Israel. Perhaps most alarmingly, under the cover of the current crises, Iran is making steady and significant progress toward nuclear weapons status that may soon be virtually irreversible.

The panel will examine where U.S. policy in the Middle East is headed, both in terms of salvaging the Biden administration’s aspirational goals and managing the October 7-induced crises that have already deeply undermined stability and threaten to spark an enormous regional conflagration likely to drag in the United States. It will analyze if this is a historic inflection point for the U.S. security role in this still-crucial region.

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