A turning point for US foreign policy?

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Hello and welcome. I’m Leslie Vinjamuri. I direct the US and the Americas Programme here at Chatham House. It is a real honour to have such a tremendous panel here to talk about the title of our webinar, turning point – “Is This a Turning Point for US Foreign Policy, looking at the Middle East?” As you know, my colleague Dr Sanam Vakil, who’s joining us today, has been leading with her team. She’s Director of the Middle East Programme here at – Middle East and North Africa Programme here at Chatham House, has been leading a series of webinars. And today we’re really here to talk very much about Biden’s foreign policy, about the US role in the Middle East and to ask this really important question as to whether we are at a turning point.

We’ve all been watching the efforts to get a deal. The United States, Egypt, Qatar, working with Israel and Hamas. We’ve watched what’s happening in Rafah. We’ve watched a humanitarian crisis. We’ve watched the hostages. If you are – if you’ve been with us, you are extremely well-informed. We have three tremendous people, also really nice, intelligent, thoughtful people, who you will have – all of whom know Chatham House very well and we know them very well. So, I will say a very brief word of introduction about both of them before we enter into a conversation. Will give us – ourselves about 20 or 30 minutes at the end to engage all of you in questions. I should say we are on the record, and we are recording. So, if you do ask a question, it will be recorded and it is on the record. Really important to know when it comes to a topic like this.

We have you, Ben Rhodes. You’re very well-known to us, not only for your leadership as Deputy National Security Adviser during – throughout the Obama Administration as his, sort of, close confidant, as speech writer, but also for your podcast, “Pod Save the World,” which I listened to this morning. I listen to it every week. It’s tremendous. And for especially your visit to Chatham House several years ago. I was – I loved chairing you. It was great fun and an important book and you’ve since written another book. So, thanks for joining us.

Colin Kahl, a dear friend of mine. You were recently at Chatham House. The last public talk you came – you gave on your way to the Vilnius Summit when you were Under Secretary of Defense for policy in the US Department of Defense. That slide should have said ‘former’. You are now Professor at Stanford, where you used to co-Direct CSAC. You’re now a fellow – Senior Fellow there. You were – before your role – your most recent role in government under the Obama administration, you were a National Security Adviser to Vice – then Vice President Biden and Special Assistant to the President. You bring tremendous experience. You’ve been writing about these issues and others, climate conflict for a very long time, far before they become – became popular. So, well done to you and also for your leadership.

And Sanam Vakil, known to everybody on this call, Director of the Middle East Programme here, Professor at Johns Hopkins University, SAIS Bologna. And you’ve written recently in foreign affairs very powerfully on questions of Iran and on questions of what I’ve heard you say often, “The Middle East – only the Middle East can fix the Middle East.”

So, with those very brief introductions, let me turn to you Ben and ask you, we are, some people think, at a turning point for US foreign policy. Many people are befuddled at Biden’s foreign policy. Many people, certainly on this side of the Atlantic, feel that the Biden administration hasn’t taken a strong enough position to restrain Israel’s use of force in Gaza. There’s obviously a plurality of views, but there’s a real question, I think, for many people now, as to whether we’re seeing more of a shift. Whether that policy has been working to date, whether it is still working and if it’s not working, why is it not changing? So, could you start us off by just, kind of, setting the context for where we are with Biden’s foreign policy towards the Middle East and specifically towards the war between Israel and Hamas?

Ben Rhodes

Sure, and look, it’s great to join you guys. I really look forward to and hope to get back to physical Chatham House. I enjoyed that event and Colin, it’s always great to see. He’s literally one of my favourite colleagues I’ve ever had in any job. So, good to see you, Colin, even on a screen like this. I’ve been quite critical of the Biden policy on the war in Israel and Gaza. I think to try to set the context, though, I mean, I think it – we’re at a period of time in which the United States is trying to in some ways, shrug off, I think, some of the muscle memory of thinking that it’s a hegemon or a superpower that has primacy that allows it to play by completely different rules from everybody else. And I think at its best, the Biden foreign policy has adjusted to the ways in which the world has changed. Obviously, through the multilateralism that was at the core of the defence of Ukraine, but also through some innovative efforts to try to, kind of, reposition, regenerate American alliances to deal with, you know, evolving set of issues, from climate change to artificial intelligence and to other things.

That said, I think that clearly, to me, the problem for the last several months in the Middle East has been a lack of a similar effort to essentially, account for the reality that you have an incredibly far-right government in Israel, led by an incredibly beleaguered Prime Minister in ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu who showed every indication from the get-go, after the horrific events of 7 October, that we’re always going to have some type of Israeli military reaction and they were always going to have some support from the United States for that, but you saw the warning signs very early. Around the rhetoric in terms of cutting off food and fuel and water into Gaza, around the, kind of, dehumanising rhetoric about the Palestinians, and the initial bombardments of Gaza, in which almost immediately, you saw a degree of the use of force that clearly was indiscriminate as it related to civilian deaths.

And I think that, you know, Joe Biden’s basic theory of the case was informed by a long history of working with Israel, that, well, the way that you get Israel to, essentially, follow your advice is you wrap your arms around them, you back them full tilt in public and you offer them some counsel in private. And that was the message, you know, Colin and I – you didn’t have to be a former official like me to get that after the 2021 Gaza War, there was almost, kind of, a victory lap around the success of that type of approach. And so, there were, kind of, these parameters set from the get-go, we’re not going to – we’re going to back them in public, we’re going to offer criticism in private and we’re going to try to restrain their military operation so that it’s more precise and more targeted. And there was never any indication that this Israeli Government, with a far-right coalition was following that advice. And we’ll break down, I’m sure, pieces of that.

I’d say there are, kind of, a couple of other things that I’d say that this is emblematic of in US foreign policy. One is a political calculus, frankly, that I think needs to evolve. You know, it’s – we’ve all been – to those of us who’ve been in the intersection of politics and national security, it’s seen as very politically complicated to have any daylight between the United States and Israel. I think that that’s a fairly outdated view of politics and I think that’s been borne out in this conflict, but I think Biden, again, he was a Senator for decades. I think he’s deeply shaped by that kind of political judgment as it relates to potential disagreements with Israel.

I think secondly, there was, you know, a sen – a, kind of, inability to, kind of, see the United States from the outside in, and this is something that I’ve really, you know, wrestled with since I left government, but I think the United States doesn’t do a good job of looking at itself from the perspective of other people. And so, you know, even on Ukraine, it’s like, well, why is the Global South not backing us on this priority? Well, this is why, you know. Because we talk about a rules-based international order and accountability. We celebrate the ICC when they’re issuing indictments against Vladimir Putin and then, when essentially the exact same type of tactics are being pursued in Gaza, it’s an entirely different standard.

And to me, this is the big part of what needs to change, if you’re talking about are there going to be changes in American foreign policy? And like I said, throw out the old politics that says that, you know, we have to be very constrained in how we think about certain issues. I’d like us to be able to look at ourselves from the outside in and stop having such a clear double standard when we talk about a rules-based order. So, that’s another big piece. And then I think maximalist objectives, and Colin has been really good at this. The US gets into traps when we align ourselves with unachievable objectives and I think from the get-go, the objective of defeating Hamas militarily, that was evidently not possible, you know. I mean, you could dismantle a big chunk of their military capabilities, but that, kind of, set us up for where we are today.

So, they’ve recalibrated, they’ve turned the dial, they’ve started criticising, they’ve started now restricting the flow of offensive weapons. Frankly, I think that’s good, but I think it’s probably, you know, too late to affect how the world has digested this conflict. It’s certainly too late for Israeli hostage families that probably could have had a better chance of getting people home through negotiation, and we’ll talk about that, and obviously, for the Palestinians who are suffering. But that’s how I, kind of, see the – how this fits into the – a bigger picture of what needs to change in American foreign policy.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Thanks. You set us up very well and I’m glad that you got to that question of whether there’s been any updating. I’m going to come back to you not just yet, but, you know, it’s too late, but obviously, we still have, as you well know, from – and we’ve all listened to you, there’s still, you know, a problem, a very big problem. So, it can’t be too late. So, we’re going to come back to you on that, but Colin, let me come to you on, you know, you’ve – I mean, you know President Biden extremely well over many, many years of public service. You knew all these issues even before those posts that I mentioned. You’ve worked in The Pentagon. What is your understanding of US foreign policy, why it’s taken the track it has, and your estimation of its failure or success, or where it’s going now?

Dr Colin Kahl

Well, first, Leslie, it’s great to see you again. Leslie and I were grad students together at Columbia. This was in the 90s so there was no camping on the lawn at that time. Sanam, it’s great to see you again. I think we saw each other in Bologna the last time, and Ben, always wonderful to be with you. Look, I think that, you know – I think just, kind of, riffing off some of the things that Ben said, there’s no question that the, kind of, the global distribution of power is different today than it was, you know, in the immediate aftermath of the end of the Cold War or the immediate aftermath of 9/11. The distribution of power is different.

I still think it’s true that the United States remains the world’s most consequential actor and we are the most consequential actor in the Middle East, even though we have spent years, across a number of administrations, trying to, kind of, deleverage our position in the Middle East. So, you know, Joe Biden sometimes jokes that, you know, “When you’re the United States of America, you’re everybody’s biggest problem and everybody’s only solution.” And there’s, I think, some degree to which that remains the case. And then the question is, are we using our power wisely? And I think, you know, Ben surfaced a number of issues there.

I think it is really important to understand that, you know, the policy is Joe Biden’s policy and he – you know, it is deeply rooted in his beliefs, both normative and causal. I think normatively, you know, this is a man who has had deeply held convictions about the ironclad commitment to Israel’s security, even when we have profound disagreements with a particular Israeli Government, that we have a profound moral obligation to the survival and security of Israel as a last refuge for the Jewish people. And, you know, that’s been a belief that’s been constant his entire adult life.

It’s also the case that I think his, you know, his judgment was, and people can debate this empirically, but his judgment was that, you know, in the first – you know, throughout much of the Obama administration, the United States and the Netanyahu Government in Israel engaged in, kind of, public food fights that didn’t actually move the Israelis very much and proved to be counterproductive. In no small part because it didn’t give us any political capital with the Israeli public because, you know, Obama was seen, you know, rightly or wrongly, in the first term as, kind of, going into a full-frontal confrontation with Netanyahu over the settlements and trying to push for a two-state outcome. And I think Biden has just been of the belief that that, kind of, big hugs, little punches policy is more effective.

It raises the question then, has it been effective? And I think if – you need to measure it on, kind of, two levels. One is there is a profound US National Security objective in making sure that as terrible as the war is in Gaza, it didn’t become a regional war and there have been several moments where it very easily could have. To include very early in the conflict, where I think, you know, not unlike the United States after 9/11 where the Bush administration, you know, went after the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan for understandable reasons and then quickly pivoted to Iraq to try to have this, you know, big play at creating absolute security for the United States.

There was a very big similar temptation in Israel for the Netanyahu Government to do the same thing vis-a-vis Hezbollah in Lebanon that the Biden administration talked them out of doing. And had the Israelis pre-emptively gone into Lebanon in mass, it would’ve lit the entire region on fire in a way that, you know, would make what we’re looking at now seem quite small. And of course, there were more recent tit-for-tat between Israel and Iran, where I think the Biden administration was actually quite deft in limiting what could’ve been a quite escalatory moment as the, kind of, shadow war between Israel and Iran came out into the open and they started, you know, lobbing missiles at each other.

And then in between, I think doing a lot of wise things in the region to create some semblance of deterrence vis-a-vis Iran and its proxies and not prevent those proxies from doing things, like what the Houthis are doing in the Red Sea or what Iraqi Shia militia or Syrian Shia militia are doing, but to keep those within bounds of escalating to a full-blown conflict. So, I think the Biden administration deserves enormous credit for that. It didn’t happen automatically. It happened with the leadership of the President and his team, so they deserve credit.

On Israel, look, I mean, the – it’s clear that the United States did not decisively shape Israel’s approach to the intervention in Gaza, especially in the opening two months of the war. I mean, if you actually look at the 34,000 deaths in Gaza, the majority of which being civilians, about half of those happened in the first six weeks of the war when Israel went in massively in Northern Gaza. And clearly, US policy, you know – I think if you talk to US officials, they’ll say it could’ve been even worse, but it was, you know, it was really bad. And of course, also the worst aspects of the, kind of, humanitarian siege was also in that first half of the war. So, you know, we did not shape Israel’s initial response, I think, quite profoundly.

I think more recently, you know, the administration has notched some successes in expanding humanitarian access, in limiting the nature of Israeli military actions in recent weeks. And I think the big test coming up is essentially, whether the administration can get this – the ceasefire deal, the hostage deal across the goal line. I think Bill Burns is in Israel today and teams are negotiating in Cairo as we speak and that the administration is at least signalling that it doesn’t believe that Israel’s proposal and Hamas’ counter proposal are that far apart. And they’re clearly pressuring both sides to strike a deal.

So, we have to look to see whether things start to calm down a bit. And then also, whether, you know, having seized the Rafah Crossing, ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu decides, with a hostage deal or no hostage deal, to go into Rafah at scale. Because if the Israelis go into Rafah at scale, the administration, US administration has made clear that would create a massive breach in the US-Israel strategic relationship and really would be an inflection point where all those, kind of, chips that Biden has built up since the war began would be cashed-in in a way that would be, I think, quite impactful for the US-Israel relationship.

So, look, I think there’s lots of questions about whether things should’ve been done differently, but I think my scorecard would probably be a little bit more mixed on the success.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Great. Thank you, and I – you know, your theme of restraint is one that we know has been a priority. In that sense, the Biden administration has been consistent across the two major wars that are dominating and, you know, taking our attention, rightfully. There are others, but certainly those two should be taking our attention. Sanam, let me come to you. You’ve had a lot to say. You have a lot to say. You’ve now listened just to what’s been said, but let’s get your thinking on US foreign policy. I know you tend, frequently, to talk from the perspective of the region. You’re deeply expert on Iran, on both sides of the Gulf, but it would be very good to get your perspective on US foreign policy, in part in response to what’s been said, but very much from your own vantage point over the last several months.

Dr Sanam Vakil

Well, thank you Leslie for bringing us together and it’s a great opportunity and I think an important moment to be talking about the range of issues and of course, taking it to how, if at all, it will impact the election. And it’s really great to hear Ben and Colin’s views, many of which I share, and I don’t want to, sort of, echo too much, but I’ll pick up on some of them with my thoughts.

I think above all, you know, I do share a, sort of, mixed review of the Biden administration’s approach since 7 October. Certainly, the Biden administration has been indispensable, I would even argue, in preventing a broader regional war. And the force protection, the presence, the back channelling, the messaging that has taken place since 7 October to contain the War on Gaza and prevent it from spilling out has been very important and I think without it, we would be in a very different space.

So, you know, on the one hand, one takeaway I continue to have is even though this is a multipolar world and certainly, the region is trying to react and make sense of broader global shifts, the US remains an indispensable power in the region and such that most of America’s partners are trying to hang on for more of the United States, not less of the United States. And – but of course, they’re playing many sides of this equation and it’s important to pick that apart. Despite what I would say, you know – on the other hand, the US has not been as influential and I think that’s an important takeaway, as well, because here we are seven months on from this horrendous war that I think has massive impacts within Israel.

And Israel itself isn’t, sort of, acknowledging or rendering the broader impact of this war, not just domestically, but regionally and connected to its broader Iran security problem and its ambitions of regional integration. You know, I think that the US influence has certainly been constrained and that’s a takeaway that I think we need to, sort of, maybe discuss more in-depth and in another occasion. But I would connect that to the fact that the Biden administration in particular, hasn’t had a Middle East strategy, and that was made clear from the beginning of the administration. The Middle East was, you know, at the bottom of the laundry list of an issue, and there was very much a containment strategy towards the Middle East, or economic approach towards the Middle East, or an Iran Band-aid strategy pursued towards the Middle East.

And we know that President Biden has, sort of, struggled to manage or balance the statements he made, you know, back when the Ukraine War came out, about this is a clash between autocracies and democracies, which ruffled a lot of feathers across the Middle East and played out not in the most productive way in bringing America’s partners on-board to support Ukraine in that war. I think it’s carried over in my own engagements with Washington, but, you know, more broadly in a lot of written work, the Biden administration felt quite confident that the Middle East was okay. And for those of us that have been working on the Middle East for quite some time, the Middle East is, of course, in a – maybe a new frontier where – that we’re seeing direct dialogue and de-escalation and much more agency from Middle Eastern states to directly manage conflicts.

And I think that’s a very important step in the right direction, but conflicts haven’t been solved. Conflicts have been contained, Band-aided, or neglected. And so, Yemen continues to fester and of course, the Houthis are closing down the Red Sea and attacking international ships. Syria is a complete off the radar of the international community and of course, Palestine, which I was repeatedly told was not an issue, in all of our efforts to engage with policymakers and funders to work on the Israeli-Palestinian process, it has, of course, exploded. And none of this is a surprise to those of us who are working and observing and conducting research and engaging more broadly on the Middle East.

So, this actually speaks to the need for a strategy of engagement, one that can’t be, sort of, tied up in a magic bow where the Biden administration keeps trying to push Israeli-Saudi normalisation as a, sort of, a win for their broader aims. It actually requires a different way of engaging across the Middle East, a more sustainable approach to supporting conflict management in Israel and Palestine, but, you know, more broadly in the other conflicts that are now connected. They’re transnational, and they’re harder to unlock. And of course, this overlays on top of all of this, the Iran challenge, which is currently contained, thanks to the US, but of course, has spilled over across the region and will explode again at another point. We just don’t know when. So, I’ll stop there.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Thank you. There’s a lot there. I’m sure, Colin, you spent 21 to 23 in the administration. I’m sure you’re going to want to respond to that. I’m going to come to you first, Ben, and, kind of, come back to you each on one more question about, you know, where the administration is going now. Ben, you ended by, sort of, saying yes, it’s starting to recalibrate. We’ve heard from Sanam some of the concerns, but you, sort of, said it’s a mess and it’s too late, but could you expand on that? Would you…?

Ben Rhodes

Yeah, yeah.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Any chance of this deal working? Where do you see policy going? If you want to take us into, you know, the Trump versus Biden question, I would invite you to do that. I am going to, later on, take us into the domestic politics, but could we get your, sort of, the now and looking forward?

Ben Rhodes

I – well, look, and I do feel compelled to agree with the point about regional war. I think that’s the biggest success of this policy has been the restraint, particularly with respect to Lebanon and then to some extent, with Iran. I – in terms of where it’s going and we’ll get to the ceasefire, I mean, as far as I can tell, you know, the play for months has been this combination of, can we get this ceasefire in place, maybe, kind of, long enough that it gives us a window to do some diplomacy in which we might be able to bring in this Saudi normalisation play or some kind of Saudi deal that then opens up some broader pathway to de-escalation? And that feels to me like what they’ve been trying to do.

It – that feels like, you know, getting a straight flush, like poker. Like, so many things have to go right. You know, you’re landing a bunch of planes in storms for that to happen and so, you know, I don’t want to be predictive here, but assuming that doesn’t happen, or all of those pieces don’t happen, I still don’t think there’s some, kind of, broad recalibration before the election. You know, I think there’s a, kind of, grim separation from Israel that probably involves the restriction of certain weapons going to the Israelis, but it, kind of, is what it is, ‘cause you’re not going to have a movement for major policy shifts, probably, in the summer of an election year.

That said, projecting forward, I want to bring in some of the things that have been said. You know, I do believe that one of the challenges that Sanam mentioned that I totally agree with, is that Biden, kind of, took the Abraham Accords as, I think, far more consequential than they were and that may have been a point of convenience, you know. We want to focus on China, then we’ve got this huge issue in Ukraine that’s going to take up a lot of bandwidth, and there’s a whole other bunch of stuff we’re doing. And so, we – they, kind of, sounded the music of the Abraham Accords as their Middle East policy.

Which I always thought – I from the beginning, thought the Abraham Accords was a bit over the top in how it was spun. This was not a peace agreement. You know, it was some autocratic governments making deals to normalise relations with Israel, in which, as far as I could tell, the United States made all the concessions. You know, “Oh, you get Western Sahara over here in Morocco and you get off the State Sponsor of Terrorism list here in Sudan.” And we, kind of, gave a bunch of things away, you know, to facilitate something that did not resolve the underlying conflicts.

It did not resolve the conflict with Iran in the region, which was escalated when Trump pulled out of the nuclear deal. It did not resolve circumstances in places like Syria and Libya. If anything, it emboldened some of these autocratic partners of the US. So, Sudan, the civil war we see there is in part, you know, Emirati financed. So, I actually thought the Abraham Accords gave this very false – and no, and of course, it totally cut out the Palestinians. I mean, it was as if, you know, they had never been a part of Arab-Israeli peace. You know, suddenly you’re going to have ‘peace’ without the party that is – doesn’t have a state and that has been the belligerent of late.

And so, to me, this – it wasn’t just Biden, the, kind of, Washington fixation on the Abraham Accords is always a bit bizarre to me. I get that after, you know, the Iran deal, people were exhausted by the politics of taking that issue on, and Colin deserves as much credit as anybody for both having the policy vision and the political courage to engage in that. So, I accept Colin from this entirely, but to me, if there’s a second Biden term, the policy in some fashion, is going to have to circle around to actual conflict resolution, you know, instead of just conflict avoidance.

And my preferred course of action and I obviously have the, you know, the bias of my past, is that there has to be some re-entry into diplomacy with Iran. If nothing else, over its nuclear programme. There has to be some broadening of the, I think, the parties involved in Gaza reconstruction obviously. And I would argue, you know, some negotiated pathway to a Palestinian state that might not involve the Israeli Government, but the US Government and others, kind of, working to hit some markers on the way to recognition with the Palestinians. I’m sure that’s probably not the most popular idea in Washington, but I don’t know how else you get there with a Israeli Government that has a stated policy of avoiding a two – of preventing a two-state solution.

So, I just think you have to, kind of, broaden these conversations to actually try to resolve problems. Even on things like the Saudi deal, I just would like to know what’s in it for the United States. You know, I’ve heard all about what’s in it for the Saudis. The Israelis get normalisation on some horizon. I mean, we have interest too, and I’d like to see those be, kind of, addressed as part of these types of negotiations. So, that – and I think Biden would be far more likely, by the way, to go there than Trump, who I think, you know – foreign policy when he was President was made in Riyadh and Jerusalem and I don’t know why it’d be different the second time.

And – but secondly, I think that, you know, Biden is a political animal and second-term Presidents have a little bit more running room. He will have probably be on the backend of ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu as Prime Minister of Israel. And there may be, you know, I am not suggesting he’s going to solve all these problems, but I do believe – I’m one of these people that believes that just the effort to solve these problems is useful and tends to avert the, kind of, worst case outcomes that we’ve seen of late. So, that’s where I would like to see things go and I’m not sure that I – it’s up to Joe Biden. I’m not sure he would go as far as I would in certain elements, like, you know, negotiating recognition of a Palestinian state, or I’m not sure how far he’d go in an Iran deal. But he might go part of the way, which is better than where we are now. So, that would be my hope.

Again, the main thing I would like to see is moving us off this Abraham Accords fixation that this is solving some set of problems when it’s not. And I hope that the two lessons the administration takes from what hasn’t worked in the last year or two is the Abraham Accords is the answer to every problem and the hug ‘Bibi’ and, you know, talk to them in private approach.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Ben, just really quickly before I come to Colin. I mean, what you just said at the start – kind of, the start of this intervention is extraordinary to people watching, that there’s unlikely to be any change before a term two, if there is a term two. We’re six months away from an election that might go on for a very long time. A long time away from, you know, a inauguration, a second time inauguration, if that’s what we see. I mean, is there not anything that you can imagine, fundamentally or…?

Ben Rhodes

Oh, yeah. I think there’ll be tactical changes, right? Assuming this – if the ceasefire deal doesn’t happen, right, so, plan A doesn’t happen, I think that there’ll be, you know, like, a total change in how the US provides assistance to Israel. I wouldn’t expect – you know, I’d expect further restrictions on offensive weapons and more public pressure to get to some kind of ceasefire. I think that the approach that the administration would take is they’re going into Rafah, we couldn’t stop it. That’s the last thing that they might need to do. Maybe they’ll get Sinwar, they’ll have some capacity to declare victory, hopefully sooner rather than later and we’re going to focus on getting assistance and we’re going to focus on Gaza reconstruction. We’ll probably have some big difference, though, with the Israeli Government about who’s administering Gaza. So, I think they’re not out of the woods in terms of differences here.

So, I think you’d see a more publicly – you know, a public break with Netanyahu that is more substantive than what we’ve seen, but I’m not sure there’s room for, like, some broad strategic recalibration here. You know, you get – I’ve been there and Colin’s been there, and you get in the summer of an election year and the last thing you’re doing in August and September is some big Middle East peace initiative, you know.

Now, as soon as the election is over, I mean, I would counsel the, you know, the transition – don’t wait till the inauguration if Biden is re-elected, or even if he’s not for that matter. You know, I just think that there’s a period of time after the election where you want to be more aggressive, frankly. If he’s re-elected, you have a replenishment of capital that puts you in a very strong position and the second you’re re-elected that capital starts diminishing, until you leave office. I would be moving fast after re-election to do something big.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Colin, you’ve just heard a lot about the Biden administration, of which you are a very important part, which isn’t to say that you’re responsible or not, but…

Dr Colin Kahl

We were winning when I left.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

You were win – always winning when you’re in charge.

Ben Rhodes

Kind of, true, actually. Like, it was, you know, it was like a high watermark before the [inaudible – 34:25], you know.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

So, responses to Sanam and Ben and also, you know, what do you expect to see and what should happen, and is there going to be a recalibration and what might move the needle? And if you want to also take us into what’s going on in the streets of the elite next gen people in the US and does it matter at all for where policy is going to go?

Dr Colin Kahl

Yeah. We should come back – I, you know, I do think we should come back to that. I think the recalibration in the medium to long-term is that, you know, the US political conversation around Israel has fundamentally shifted. And I – a lot of people have predicted this for a long time as a consequence of, kind of, generational and demographic and political dynamics, especially in the Democratic Party. But obviously the events following 7 October have, kind of, brought those – you know, the volcano has erupted.

But let me maybe back up to, kind of, where Sanam and Ben were on, kind of, the broader approach. I think it’s useful for folks watching and listening in to keep in mind that I think, you know, the Biden administration was essentially trying to navigate and balance a, kind of, set of irreconcilable imperatives. On the one hand, you know, since 9/11 and 20 years of investments in the forever wars and all of that, the US body politic is exhausted with the Middle East and, you know, in an overwhelming sense. And frankly, Obama had it, Trump had it to some degree, and Biden had it that the United States needed to, you know, take a step back and not overinvest in a part of the world that we had invested probably too much blood and treasure in following 9/11.

I think there was also a sense of humility, I think imposed by a number of pretty searing experiences. You know, one was the outcome of the invasion and occupation of Iraq. The other was the difficulty in navigating the Arab Spring and the civil wars in Syria and Libya. And frankly another was the lack of effectiveness of the Trump administration’s maximum pressure policy on Iran. All of that seemed to suggest that the ability of the United States, as powerful as we are to, kind of, transform or bend the region completely to our will, whether it’s Iraq, the Arab Spring, or Iran, is limited. And so, there’s exhaustion and a degree of, kind of, humility borne out of experience.

And then there was just the strategic imperative that I think is shared across the Republican and Democratic establishment, that, you know, America’s vital national interests are more nested in the Indo-Pacific and Europe than they are in the Middle East. And that the competition with Russia and China are, like – are the centre of gravity, at least geopolitically. There are other huge issues like climate change and emerging technologies that also impact US foreign policy, but that – I think those – that combination of exhaustion, humility, and strategic recalibration meant a, kind of, pivot away or a desire to pivot away, or to manage and mitigate risks from the Middle East instead of transform it.

I think cutting against that, though, were a number of other things. First, Iran remained a really troublesome actor, doing a lot of bad things in the region, threatening our forces in the region, and even if we were going to shrink down to say, a presence of 15 or 20,000 forces, Iran was threatening those forces in the Gulf, in Iraq, in Syria. Iran’s nuclear programme, because of Trump’s decision in early 2018 to pull out of the Obama era of JCPOA, the Iran nuclear deal. You know, when the JCPOA was in place, Iran would’ve – it would’ve taken Iran about 12 months or more to produce the fissile material for a single nuclear weapon. They could now produce that in a couple of days and they could probably produce half a dozen bombs’ worth of nuclear fuel in just a handful of months.

And so, the, you know, the Iranian nuclear programme and all of that is a national interest of the United States, going back many years. And while the oil markets have profoundly shifted in recent years, the geoeconomic importance of the Middle East in the competition with Russia and China is actually quite profound, separate and apart from just the effect on oil markets. Just because of the sheer amount of resources the Saudis and the Emiratis and the Qataris can throw around and whether they do that in a, kind of, US-based ecosystem or a Chinese-based ecosystem actually does matter for our national security. So, I just think any policy, kind of, had to balance that imperative, like, we got to get – you know, we should get out and here are some reasons why we still need to try to influence events.

And so, I do think, you know, Sanam is right that the Biden administration had a fairly modest approach and it was essentially to try to de-escalate regional conflicts in Yemen in particular. I think there was a sense that because we were so far removed from the beginning of the JCPOA and closer to the sunsets, that you needed to probably have some interim step of trying to de-escalate the nuclear issue to try to build towards some better agreement. We were actually relatively close to that, I think prior to 7 October. It was obviously blown up by the events of 7 October.

I think there was a broad sense of trying to shift the regional balance of power more decisively in favour of US allies and partners, but also in a way where they would therefore require the United States less and where we could play a role, basically, as an integrator on issues like maritime security and integrated air and missile defence. And we actually saw in April, in Israel, the United States and our allies in the region – and our partners in the region swatting down 300 missiles and drones from Iran, a vision that we actually started to put in place during the Obama administration of a regional security architecture.

So, there was – you know, and obviously if there was a big play, it was on the Israel-Saudi normalisation deal. And I think, you know, to Ben’s point, there were real debates within the administration about, you know, how much political capital the President should spend to try to get that over the line. 7 October blew all that up. So, you know, a problem that looked like we were trying to manage and de-escalate and mitigate suddenly went boom and, you know, we were trying to contain the violence from becoming a regional war while also, you know, trying to make the most of a terrible situation.

I do think the open question moving forward, strategically, is whether out of the ashes of this horrendous war and humanitarian catastrophe, you can build something better in the Middle East. Not like – unlike we’ve – you know, the world has built things out of the ashes of previous devastating conflicts. It’s not an argument for why the conflict is a good thing. It’s most assuredly not a good thing, but out of crises can be an opportunity, and so the question is, can you end the war? Can you end the war in a self-sustaining way? Can you do it in a way that allows for the reconstruction of Gaza under a leadership that is not dominated by Hamas? Can you create a credible pathway to a Palestinian state that lives side by side with Israel, where both can be secure? And can you do that as a pathway for Israel to continue to stitch together its relationship with moderate Arab countries and potentially, have a game changing relationship with Saudi Arabia? That is the straight flush, right, that Ben talked about. You know, the odds of it, I think are, you know, not huge at the moment. Though obviously will be higher if we get a ceasefire deal in place.

But I think even if you get all of that in place, and I’ll close here, you will run the risk that Americans will be like, alright, well, after trying to get out of the Middle East, now we have this entire arrangement that requires the United States to be entrapped again in the Middle East to manage affairs. So, I don’t think this dilemma is going away. Whether it’s Biden 2.0 or Trump 2.0, this fundamental dilemma of the Americans wanting to get out and not being able to get out is something we’ll be wrestling with for the rest of our lives.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Colin, that’s great. I’m going to come to Sanam. Just for those of you who aren’t aware, you left in July, right, so, before this?

Dr Colin Kahl

Yeah.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

To Ben’s comment, you were on the winning – we were winning when you left. Just so everybody knows, not to – you weren’t – you were in the administration, you weren’t, you know, directly in the administration since 7 October.

Dr Colin Kahl

I – but, hey, you know, in all seriousness of, you know, the joke because, you know, I worked at The Pentagon many times and all of our soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan would leave with T-shirts or mug that says, “We were winning when I left.”

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Good luck with that.

Dr Colin Kahl

I cannot think of a team that has had to confront more global turmoil, you know, Afghanistan, Ukraine, tensions across the Taiwan Strait, now this. I think these are largely by-products, you know – going back to our political science background, Leslie, these are manifestations of profound structural shifts in the international system that any administration was going to have to deal with. And I will say that, you know, I’m not objective, but I think Americans should be very proud of the job that the team has done in navigating a situation that if you had had a different President and a less competent team, would’ve been cataclysmic for…

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Yeah, I think…

Dr Colin Kahl

…the world and US national interests.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

I do think we’re going to…

Dr Colin Kahl

And that’s not on me. That’s about the President and the team and this…

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

I appreciate that, and I think – I feel like we’re going to have to have an entirely separate session with both of you here in-person to talk about, you know, what happens, because you say all this, but of course, we do know, people outside of America I think are much more worried about the American part of the story and how it’s going to alter all those objectives that you just put on the table. Depending on, you know, what happens in November, does it really matter? And also, what’s happening right now across college of campuses. But let me turn to you Sanam, ‘cause I know you have a few points and then, we’re going to come to Peter Westmacott for – with a question and we’ll come back to the panel.

Dr Sanam Vakil

Thank you, and just to chime in and again, layer – add some more layers to this. I think thinking about, you know, the past three administrations and the regional reaction to US shifts in priorities, I think the takeaways from 7 October, which are still very much playing out, you know, I did say that, of course, on the one hand, you know, many Arab states are still trying to huddle and keep the US close, particularly Saudi Arabia, through this potential normalisation agreement, which is very much about Washington and less about Israel. And I think that this is oftentimes misunderstood, or again, people want to sew up regional integration. And Israel also oftentimes, misunderstands or misreads the region in that, you know, everyone in the region wants to keep the United States engaged to help manage security challenges.

And for Israel, you know, one of the takeaways since 7 October is that the region doesn’t see Israel in the same exalted way that they did prior to 7 October. Its military capacity looks much more fragile. On the streets, of course, people are very angry, very frustrated. I’ve never seen the region so inflamed and I think that’s important to bear in mind. The whole double standards question, you know, of course is wreaking havoc across very constrained Middle Eastern societies, where there is no release valve for these frustrations. This is very much being played out, of course, in social media in very dangerous ways, potentially fanning the flames of extremism that is deeply concerning, you know, more broadly for regional security, but also for American partners in the region.

I think Colin brought up the whole China angle and I think that that’s important to consider in, sort of, the bigger picture. I think it’s the US – the Indian Foreign Minister, Jaishankar who said that “The US fights without winning,” but is not winning and China is winning without fighting. And, you know, this I think very much captures the regional, sort of, binaries of life since 7 October. China isn’t very active, obviously, sort of, you know, maybe is trying to bring together Palestinian factions and try to be a player in the diplomatic scene, without really investing too much. And the US is putting in all of the work and really losing support across the region and I think, also getting its policy on Israel very wrong from – since 7 October. With the bear hug approach and the hand on the shoulder of President Netanyahu, there has not been enough aid going into Gaza and that. You know, we’re on the brink of starvation, if not starvation, as being described and that’s important to say.

Netanyahu is clearly part of the problem, but isn’t the only problem and I think putting all the emphasis on Netanyahu is also wrong. The Israeli political establishment is working together, and I think we have to acknowledge that the UNWRA decision, of course, you know, nobody is discussing it, but, you know, that that’s a real difficulty and a real predicament that has again harmed Palestinians. The West Bank is not on anyone’s agenda, at least publicly, and that needs to be discussed. 451 people have been killed since 7 October. Israel has seized further land, again in direct violation of international law, not discussed in the public domain enough.

So, how President Biden – you know, if he can shift at all in advance of November, I think it’s, you know, of urgent need not just for the domestic climate, potentially, in the US if Americans are reacting to this, but I think regionally, for the broader regional strategy, to prevent countries like Iran from exploiting the climate in the region. To prevent, again, China from trying to swan in and extort and exploit these dynamics for its own purposes, it’s urgently, urgently needed and without which, I just don’t see the US as being able to marshal support in the same way in the next crisis that is certainly going to emerge.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

A lot in that. I’m going to come to Sir Peter Westmacott and then I’m going to come back, we don’t have a lot of time, I’m going to come back to the panel because we really do want to hear from you on the domestic situation in the US. You know, we are talking about all this all the time. I’m sure you are too at a, sort of, high level of foreign policy, but what is going on in the American electorate? Does it matter? Is it having any impact in the short, medium or long-term?

So – but first let’s come to Sir Peter Westmacott who is a Senior Advisor on the US and the Americas Programme, was Ambassador to the US, to France, and to Turkey, and is a tremendous part of our Chatham House family. Sir Peter?

Sir Peter Westmacott

Leslie, thank you, and it’s so good to see Ben and Colin there. Really, two very wise heads with so much to say on this important subject. I’ll be very brief. I mean, obviously, the immediate requirement – the immediate priority for everybody is to get some kind of a sustainable ceasefire going which will get some hostages out, end the slaughter, and not forgetting about what’s going on in the West Bank, as Sanam was saying. But I just wanted to ask a question about the strategic side of things. Colin talked a bit about Iran. I’m one of those who finds it hard to believe that the Israelis did not expect an Iranian reaction when they attacked that diplomatic mission in Damascus, especially when everybody afterwards said, the Iranians have been so humiliated that, of course, they were going to retaliate. But, you know, that’s to be discussed.

But my real question is this, is after the exchange of blows between Israel and Iran, do – I mean, Ben, Colin, do you actually think, and Sanam perhaps, as well, that the likelihood of the Iranians moving ahead with the capability of nuclear weapons has increased? Or do you think that they will now stand back a bit because they don’t want to get a bloody nose, having seen, briefly anyway, what damage Israel can do to their military installations? I just wonder whether you think that the outcome of that choreographed, almost, exchange of blows means that we are nearer a moment of real crisis in terms of Iran’s nuclear capability, or whether that danger has receded? Thanks.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Thank you, Peter. Who would like to start? Colin, do you want to start on that?

Dr Colin Kahl

Sure. I mean, look, I – you know, everything that I’ve seen, and the folks that I’ve talked to, suggest that the Israelis did not anticipate that the Iranians would directly strike out for the attack in early April in Damascus that killed seven IRGC officials, including a number of very Senior Generals. You know, that was obviously a miscalculation because of the nature of the target and also, because, you know, we did see Iran, kind of, have these spasm of missile strikes a number of months before in response to some events inside Iran, including doing crazy things like launching missiles into Pakistan. So, anyway, maybe the Israelis should’ve predicted it, Peter, but I – my sense is they didn’t.

I don’t actually – I think at the end of the day, the exchange did not do very well for Iran. So, the Israelis, you know, have a pretty successful strike in Damascus that really, kind of, bloodies the nose of the IRGC. The Iranians then telegraph a punch, but the punch is way bigger than either the Israelis or the Americans expected. You know, 300 munitions, a combination of a lot of ballistic missiles, more ballistic missiles than I think have been fired at any time in recent mystery – history. A bunch of cruise missiles, a bunch of drones, and they were all – I think about 99% of them were shot down and the strike was completely ineffective. So, on the one hand, they did this massive retaliation against Israel and the Israelis, the Americans and our – and more quietly, our Arab partners in the regions swatted that attack away, which I don’t – which I think the Iranians had to be surprised at.

And then – I mean, for all the criticism of the Netanyahu Government, I think actually their response to Iran was almost perfectly calibrated, in the sense that, you know, Iran launches 300 missiles and drones and doesn’t do anything to Israel. Israel land – launches a handful of very long-range, very sophisticated missiles, probably from Syria, that impacted with extraordinary precision an S-300 air defence system in Isfahan at the heart of Iran’s nuclear programme and the Iranians didn’t even know what happened. So, like, the disparity in capabilities – I take Sanam’s point that Israel didn’t look so great after 7 October on their military capabilities, but if you’re sitting in Iran, you’re not doubting whether Israel has better military capabilities than you are right now.

So, Peter, I think right now they’re going to keep their powder dry. I don’t think they’re going to rush to a nuclear weapon, in part because I don’t think they need to. I think that they may believe that this kind of turn of the screw, you know, being one turn of the screw away from having a nuclear weapon allows them to, kind of, have the best of both worlds, a modicum of deterrence without bringing down the house of bricks on them that might happen if they moved towards an actual nuclear weapon, either militarily or otherwise. So, I don’t anticipate a major move in the near-term, but in the medium to long-term, you know, to the degree that they believe their security is more tenuous and given how short and compressed their breakout timeline is, I think if we weren’t talking about Gaza, we would be talking about Iran’s nuclear programme. And I would expect if Gaza calms down, that the nuclear issue with Iran will become more front and centre for the next administration, whichever one it is.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Ben or Sanam, do you want to add a sentence to that or two before we take one last question from me about the US situation?

Ben Rhodes

No. I’ll keep my – I think Colin covered that well and I’ll save my comment to the politics.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Okay. Sanam?

Dr Sanam Vakil

I’ll stay out of that one.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

It’s a really important question and Sanam has been leading a tremendous series of conversations on Iran. I’m going to be really selfish and take us back to the US, because I lead the US and the Americas Programme here, and you are in – Ben, you’re in Los Angeles. Colin, you’re in Washington, DC as I understand it, or maybe the [inaudible – 55:27], I don’t know. And tell us, from your vantage point. A lot of people on the – in the Q&A wanted to know what happens if Trump’s elected? We are – some of us, we know that it’s an overlapping. It’s not the – what’s happening at Columbia and NYU and USC and MIT, and all over the country, is partly related to the Middle East and partly not. But what is your take on the domestic politics, the next generation’s vantage point? Will it matter for Biden, will it matter for the election, and are we looking at a very significant change if there’s a change in the White House come January 20th? A lot of questions. We’ll just get a couple of minutes on that. I’ll start with you, Ben.

Ben Rhodes

Yeah. I – look, I mean, first of all, I wanted to say that, you know, echoing what part – well, a lot of the challenges Biden has faced, and I’d be much more complimentary if it was just about any other part of the world, are structural or, you know, Trump – it was Trump who seated the Abraham Accords and pulled out of the JCPOA and moved the embassy to Jerusalem and threw the Palestinians completely under the bus. So, you know, he seated some of this and if he becomes President, you know, I wouldn’t expect any effort to restrain the more far-right elements in the Israeli government. I’d see – I – he doesn’t like war, but the likelihood of, kind of, stumbling into a conflict with Iran goes up. I mean, it’s just – I don’t – and I hope that that’s not what happens.

In terms of the politics, as we have limited time, like, I’d make a few points quickly. First of all, this is a 50/50 election that is going to come down to, like, three or four states, you know, and so, efforts to prognosticate and predict, you know, it’s going to be close. It’s going to come down to Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, maybe one or two other states will be in play. And so, on the one hand, this is not the biggest issue, and this is not going to transform the nature of the election. On the other hand, because it comes down to a few tens of thousands of votes in a few states, every little thing matters.

And to me, this – there’s three things I take away from this – the politics of this issue. One is it’s not the size. You know, some people – I know a lot of people discount – I’ve tended to say this is politically important. Some people say polls don’t show that. Polls don’t show that this is a big issue for a lot of people. They don’t show that – it doesn’t matter. If it’s a big issue for a very small number of people, it still matters in this election. You know, if we’re – if Joe Biden loses Michigan and we’re looking back at why and there’s, like, 50,000 people that didn’t vote or voted for, like, Cornel West and Jill Stein, well, this will be one of the reasons why, right? And so, I think what people ought to realise is it’s not the breadth of people protesting and people that won’t vote for Joe Biden ‘cause of this. It’s the intensity of feeling that some people have and that needs to be addressed, you know. That’s a political challenge that they should be trying to address on the ground, and I could say more about that, but I won’t for the sake of time.

Second point I’d make is I think there’s a bigger political challenge, which is, what Trump’s argument is, is “It’s weak – there’s – the world is chaotic and it’s chaotic because Joe Biden is weak,” you know. Again, I don’t agree with that message and frankly, I think the world is chaotic. Trump has more to do with the reality of the world being chaotic than Joe Biden. I think an undervalued political cost to Joe Biden has been for months telling ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu publicly to do things that ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu ignores, because that plays into the narrative that Joe Biden needs to overcome to get re-elected. And so, that’s actually a bigger problem even than protests ‘cause passive viewers might even not have a strong view of this, or maybe they’re even, you know, slanted towards Israel, but what they do see is Joe Biden going out and saying, this needs to happen and it doesn’t happen, and that’s a problem.

And again, not, you know – like, I totally acknowledge my priors on this and it’s not that Biden – Obama would get everything right, but the reason why I think the Iran deal fight was worth it is sure, we had a huge problem with the Israelis and it was ugly, but Obama did it anyway, you know. There was strength in just saying, “You know what? I – fine, you can fly to Congress and give a speech and, you know, all the rest of it. I’m just going to do this ‘cause it’s – I think it’s right.” And that so much of presidential politics is just looking strong and following through on what you do. And that’s why I think Biden still has some time here to, kind of, show he’s going to – show he’s different than Netanyahu and not just criticise him publicly.

The last thing I’d say is just a takeaway of all this is that what Trump has understood, frankly, is that the politics of foreign policy are totally scrambled. We’re not in, like, 2002 here. And Colin and I have talked a lot about this over the years, that, you know, Democrats, kind of, got, you know, PTSD from being called weak and – on issues, you know, that I’ve worked on, like Iran and Cuba, you know, it’s, “Oh, we can’t touch that. These are all third rails.” Like, there is no third rail to Donald Trump. I don’t agree with his solutions. I mean, you know, like at all, but I think what he’s identified is that the way Washington thinks about the politics of foreign policy doesn’t exist anymore. It only exists in Washington. You know, that you have to look strong in this way and you can’t have difference from the Israeli Government and you have to sanction everybody and, you know, it – I don’t think that’s true.

And so, I hope that the – one of the takeaways is let’s not impose political constraints on ourselves. What we’ve learned is that there is probably greater political risk. It’s not that there was no political risk in breaking from Netanyahu, but there was greater political risk to not doing so. And I think that’s a really, really important lesson, not just for the rest of this election, but for the Democratic Party going forward on foreign policy. Wake up people. Like, we don’t need to, kind of, impose all these paradigms on ourselves that nobody else is follow – the Republicans certainly aren’t following it.

And so, that’s – there’s room for Biden to address all those things. I don’t think, you know, he’s lost the election ‘cause of this at all. Like, I – 50/50 election, but I do think he’s got work to do to look stronger, to reach out to some of those people that do care about this a lot, not dismiss them, you know. There’s a bit of a dismissive tone towards these protests. Sure, you have to condemn the bad elements in it, but try to acknowledge that there’s reasons that people are upset that are legitimate. And then going forward, I think the whole party needs to internalise that we got to get out of the 2002 crouch that some people are still on. And then again, Joe Biden has done that on a lot of things, to his credit, you know. So, this is not – it’s not that he does this across the board. I think on this issue, it’s obviously one of the trickier ones.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Colin?

Dr Colin Kahl

No, I don’t have anything to add. I think the bottom line is and I’m, you know – I don’t really do politics, but that the margins are small and that deactivating Arab Americans, African Americans, younger Americans, in a handful of states could be all the difference, you know, in an election where, you know, that it could come down to a few thousand votes in those states. I do think there – to Ben’s point about scrambling the deck, I think that there is a bit of a reckoning on the Middle East that we had, you know, not talked about before about exhaustion. But, you know, it will – I think that the conversation on Israel has just fundamentally shifted. And that between a more isolationist Republican Party and a Democratic Party, where the politics of Israel are shifting, I just don’t think we should take for granted that – the way in which the Washington establishment has talked about Israel for, you know, for as long as any of us can remember, will be the way that it is moving forward. And I think that will be a big shift and actually, one of the biggest legacies that Prime Minister Netanyahu may have is that he politicised Israel and he – that started during the Obama administration, but it’s, kind of, being dialled to 11 because of Gaza.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Sanam?

Dr Sanam Vakil

I’ll just echo and pick up what Colin just said and stay out of the politics more broadly. I think that the Middle East in general has now – it – the politics of the Middle East is becoming bipartisan, and I think that that’s just going to continue to drive forward. It used to just be limited to the Iran portfolio and that’s a toxic asset that no-one wants to touch. It’s spread to the Gulf and, you know, there could be flip-flops that re-emerge, depending on the outcome of the election, but certainly, what we have learned since 7 October is there have been massive shifts underway on Israel policy, as well. And, you know, this has led to uncomfortable conversations, but – and miscalculations, I think also, from the Israeli Government.

But it’s time to perhaps, again, rethink some of our assumptions about the Middle East. You know, what is necessary, what is possible for the US to do in the Middle East and perhaps try to build a bit more bipartisan consensus to address the broader, you know, US strategic interests here. But certainly, young people, myself included, are feeling, you know, quite frustrated, not that I’m young anymore, about this foreign policy approach. I don’t want to lump myself into the college crowd, but, you know, without any acknowledgement of the frustrations of where we are. And this is an administration that hasn’t shown, I think, empathy to the debates that are out there. And without that empathy, I think there are real risks on the table for November.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Thank you, Sanam. Obviously, the administration has, as you well know, a lot of people in it, many of them either – the overall sense perhaps by some that there’s not empathy. There’s clearly a lot of empathy by num – a number of individuals who are slaving…

Ben Rhodes

Yes.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

…under difficult times.

Ben Rhodes

Absolutely.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Colin, Ben, Sanam, tremendous. Thank you so much. We must do this in-person. We will get you to Chatham House. There is – I will say the interest in the United States and in United States foreign policy and in America’s global role is truly extraordinary. That’s not always for good reasons, but it is a high watermark for interest and the desire to engage with these questions. So, please come across upon and we look forward to hosting you. Thanks, everybody, for joining us. Bye.