Oct.24

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The War in Israel, Part I: The Future of the World Is in the Hands of 8 or 10 People

We've got a bunch of Israel-related content today and tomorrow. To start, Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen are two of the most plugged-in journalists in the country, at least among those not named Maggie Haberman. And they are worried. Very worried. VandeHei and Allen say that they have talked to many top government officials and they are worried about there being so many overseas conflicts and flashpoints all at once. The officials say this has been the scariest week since Joe Biden took office.

Former Defense Secretary Bob Gates—who ran the Pentagon under both George W. Bush and Barack Obama—told the reporters that the country is facing more crises now than any time since the end of World War II. He said that there is a gigantic funnel over the table in the White House Situation Room and all the world's problems come down the funnel to the same 8 or 10 people sitting there. And there is only so much they can handle at once. Among other things that have come down the funnel are these:

• Israel: Team Biden is worried about a wider war in the Middle East. They saw the ferocious reaction to the hospital bombing when everyone thought Israel did it. There is no such thing as a surgical invasion in which only terrorists are killed and not ordinary civilians. Even under the best of circumstances some civilians would be killed by an invasion. But when Hamas uses civilians, especially women and children, as human shields with the hope that Israel kills them, the PR in the Arab world will be awful when it invariably happens. The old rules of war, in which armies separated themselves from civilians and aimed only at other armies, are gone when one side uses civilians as a weapon.
  
  
• Russia: Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping are meeting in China this week. Putin, who is definitely the junior partner now, needs help from Xi. Both of them believe that democracies are past their prime and don't work anymore due to internal infighting about everything. The only way to run a country is a strongman who gives the orders and everyone else obeys. The meeting is complicated because although Xi may agree with Putin on principles, the Chinese economy is heavily dependent on trade with the West and he doesn't want to ruin that. Supplying Russia with serious weapons would be a good start down the wrong road and Xi knows that. He can say whatever Putin wants to hear, but has to be very careful about what actual actions he takes.
  
  
• Iran: Biden and his advisers are very afraid that Iran may have egged Hamas on and may order Hezbollah—a much bigger terrorist group than Hamas—to invade Israel once Israel's whole army is engaged in Gaza. Hezbollah is already stepping up attacks in the North. Israel probably couldn't fight a two-front conventional war alone. If Israeli P.M. Benjamin Netanyahu feels that his country is about to be destroyed, he could lose all inhibitions and go for broke by nuking Tehran. Biden definitely absolutely doesn't want that. That's why he sent two fully equipped carrier strike forces to the Eastern Mediterranean, to make it clear to Iran that one false move and they are de facto in a war with the U.S. that they could never win.
  
  
• North Korea: North Korea is continuing developing long-range missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads that could strike the U.S. Kim Jong-Un is just crazy enough to launch a first strike on the U.S. and say: "What are you going to do about it?" He'd find out fast enough, but that might trigger World War III.
  
  
• Cyberspace: A new weapon being deployed for the first time in a war is fake information, fake photos, and fake videos designed to manipulate what people see in real time. What happens when a fake video purporting to show an Israeli soldier beheading an Arab baby is released? It will inflame the Arab world, even if it is obviously fake when it is examined closely. Some experts think that soon up to 90% of the content of the entire Internet will be manipulated or entirely fake.
  

What really scares the folks in the Situation Room is that these threats could all fuse into one, with the U.S. and Israel facing Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea all at once. And while all this is going on, the House can't elect a speaker and half of all Americans don't believe anything the government says. All these people believe is what they see on social media, little of which is true. In the event of a real emergency, could the country unite, the way it did after Pearl Harbor and 9/11? Who knows? (V)