Jake Sullivan has come to the White House to talk about the Middle East.
B: Well, so much for my plan to disengage with the Middle East and focus on China.
S: You’re not the first, Mr. President.
B: Is there anything we could have done to prevent the attack? Why wasn’t our intel better?
S: We don’t have enough resources to monitor everything, everywhere. Hamas is not really our problem. We leave them to the Israelis.
B: How could the Israelis have screwed it up so badly?
S: The obvious answers are overconfidence and plenty of constitutional and political distractions. A level of incompetence with the new government also comes into play.
B: Is Iran directly involved? If not, do you expect them to get more involved?
S: History provides plenty of examples of satellites acting independently of their patrons. Israel does that to us all of the time. North Korea does it to China. So, it isn’t surprising that the evidence we have indicates Hamas did this on their own. As to the second question, why would the Iranians put their very existence at risk when their proxies are doing the dirty work for them? I don’t see them attacking Israel on their own. Just in case, we’ve warned them, though.
B: What about Hezbollah? Could they try to invade while the Israelis are focusing on Gaza?
S: Hezbollah is a lot more professional and dangerous than Hamas, but they’re geared to fight defensively. They don’t have the resources to take and keep Israeli territory. You will probably see more missile strikes than usual, but not much more than that. Again, though, we’ve warned them, just in case.
B: If they did try to invade, would you recommend that we intervene?
S: Yes, but only if it appeared the Israelis couldn’t handle the matter on their own, which is unlikely.
B: Would the country support me if we did that?
S: Yes, and it might split the Republican Party, which would be a good thing. The bottom line, however, is we don’t need another war.
B: What can we do about the American hostages?
S: Unfortunately, not much. The hostage issue has taken a back seat to the killing and the humanitarian crisis at this point, but that might not last. If it doesn’t, you’re going to have some political problems. We will gather as much information as possible and assist the Israelis in efforts to free hostages if they ask for help. Otherwise, we’re at the mercy of events. We can’t control either party here.
B: Can we lean on the Egyptians to let our people out of Gaza?
S: We’re doing that now. As you would expect, Sisi wants things in return.
B: Do you think I should go to Israel?
S: Probably not, but you don’t have to make that decision today.
B: OK. Keep me informed. (Sullivan leaves)