US Sway Over Netanyahu Tested as Israel Vows 'Deadly' Iran Hit

US President Joe Biden’s first call in over a month with Benjamin Netanyahu threw into focus his limited ability to influence Israel’s prime minister over what could be an imminent strike against Iran.

(Bloomberg) — US President Joe Biden’s first call in over a month with Benjamin Netanyahu threw into focus his limited ability to influence Israel’s prime minister over what could be an imminent strike against Iran.

“Our attack on Iran will be deadly, precise and above all surprising,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Wednesday. “They will not understand what happened and how it happened. They will see the results.”

In a sign of the tensions between Israel and the US, its major ally, the Israeli side by the next morning had released no readout of the call.

Biden has warned Israel against attacking Iran’s nuclear sites, which Tehran would view as especially provocative. US officials also worry that hits on Iranian oil infrastructure would push up energy prices and hurt the global economy.

The US is pressing Israel to limit its retaliation against Iran for a missile salvo last week to military targets. It is also proposing a fresh round of economic sanctions, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified discussing private deliberations.

Washington is aiming to give Netanyahu an off-ramp that allows him to resist calls for severe retribution from hard-line nationalists in his coalition, as well as some opposition leaders. There’s no guarantee he’ll take it, especially given the Biden administration is reluctant to cut weapons supplies to Israel or take other measures that might force Netanyahu’s hand.

There are political concerns for the US. Vice President Kamala Harris is anxious to keep the conflict from draining support in battleground states ahead of the Nov. 5 election, especially Michigan, which has a substantial population of Arab and Muslim Americans. Netanyahu, who has openly touted his close relationship with Republican candidate Donald Trump though says he’s neutral, has shown little interest in helping her.

“Escalation in the region helps Trump, which is also good for Bibi because it means not just four more weeks of unrestrained behavior, but four years of no American pressure,”Ali Vaez, Iran Project Director at the International Crisis Group, said, using Netanyahu’s nickname.

Ties between the US and Israel have grown more strained over the past year. Netanyahu has disregarded US advice time and again in charting Israel’s response to the Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas that killed some 1,200 Israelis and saw 250 taken hostage.

Biden’s administration has been frustrated at the extent of Israel’s subsequent offensive on Gaza, which has killed around 42,000 Palestinians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory. The US has also criticized Israel for not letting enough aid into Gaza and tried, unsuccessfully, to dissuade Netanyahu from sending ground troops into southern Lebanon.

Israel started its ground incursion last week in a bid to degrade Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militant group that’s been firing rockets and drones on Israeli territory in solidarity with Hamas.

This week, Netanyahu called on Lebanese people to “take your country back” from Hezbollah and said that if they didn’t, Lebanon could experience “destruction and suffering like we see in Gaza.”

On Wednesday, when asked about those comments, US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said: “We cannot and must not see the situation in Lebanon turn into anything like the situation in Gaza. That would, of course, not be acceptable.”

Biden and Netanyahu spoke on Wednesday for the first time since August  — a long period of silence given how Israel’s multi-front conflict has escalated since then and the closeness of the two countries’ relationship. 

The call came a day after the emergence of claims in a new book by journalist Bob Woodward that the US president used expletives to describe the Israeli premier. “That son of a bitch, Bibi Netanyahu, he’s a bad guy. He’s a bad fucking guy!” Biden reportedly said to one his associates in comments the White House did not deny, CNN reported.  

A White House readout of the phone conversation didn’t mention a likely Israeli strike against Iran. Instead, it said Biden “affirmed his ironclad commitment to Israel’s security” and “condemned unequivocally Iran’s ballistic missile attack” against Israel on Oct. 1.

Most of the 200-odd missiles were intercepted and there was one fatality, a Palestinian in the West Bank. Yet far more projectiles breached Israel’s air space than during a similar Iranian attack back in April and some military bases were hit.

In the coming days, the European Union is expected to finalize another package of sanctions against Iran for supplying Russia with missiles. Other allies of Israel are waiting to see its response before committing to new restrictions on Iran, some of the people said.

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For all Netanyahu’s disregard of the US, he did heed American warnings after Iran’s April attack. He retaliated with a single, limited strike against an air-defense facility in Isfahan, Iran. That was after Biden had urged him to avoid a bigger assault and “take the win” after Iran’s salvo was almost fully foiled.

“They’ll probably go against the military-industrial complex in Iran, probably not against the nuclear power complex, and probably not against energy,” retired US Navy Admiral James Stavridis, who is now a Bloomberg opinion columnist, told Bloomberg Radio on Wednesday. “I think there’s about a one-in-four chance of a broader war in the Middle East that drags the US in. That’s uncomfortably high, but I’d still bet against a big sweeping war in the Middle East.”