For the past year, as the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, eviscerated one US-imposed “red line” after another in Israel’s brutal war on Gaza, Joe Biden and his feckless administration insisted that they did not want the conflict to spread to neighboring Lebanon and beyond. But over the past month, Netanyahu and his government launched an all-out war against Lebanon, with intensive airstrikes throughout the country and a ground invasion of southern Lebanon. More than 1 million people have been displaced, as Israel expands its assault on what it claims are Hezbollah “strongholds”.

And how has Biden responded to Netanyahu’s latest obstinacy and constant humiliation of the US administration? Biden keeps sending more US weapons and military support to Israel. On Sunday, the Pentagon announced that it was deploying one of its most advanced missile defense systems to Israel, along with about 100 American troops to operate it. This will be the first time that Washington has openly deployed US forces to Israel since Netanyahu’s government launched its war on Gaza after last October’s attack by Hamas militants.

Biden is sending US forces into a foreign conflict three weeks before a US presidential election, where his vice-president and Democratic successor, Kamala Harris, is facing the former president Donald Trump, who has made gains with swing state voters by pledging to scale back US military involvement overseas. By deploying the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, or THAAD, and its crew to Israel, Biden is embroiling the US more deeply in a regional conflict that Netanyahu has largely instigated over the past year. The system is designed to shoot down incoming ballistic missiles, and it’s intended to help Israel defend against potential Iranian missile attacks.

It’s the latest example of Biden failing to impose any consequences on Netanyahu as he expands the Gaza war into a regional one........

© The Guardian