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During RTX's May 2 annual meeting, the company board and its financiers voted on a shareholder resolution proposing a report that would detail the human rights impact of the defense conglomerate. In a recorded message, Sister Ann Scholz of the School Sisters of Notre Dame Cooperative fund urged shareholders to vote in favor of the proposal. "The intent is to help RTX ensure that its business practices are aligned with its human rights commitments and obligations as articulated in the U.N. Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights," said Sholz.The resolution, which would be non-binding if adopted, only received 5.41% of votes, according to preliminary results. A similar proposal at Lockheed Martin failed.Transparency around the defense industry could reveal uncomfortable truths for Wall Street. Many of the investors in the defense industry claim to adhere to internationally- agreed-upon frameworks such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the U.N. Guiding Principles, which states that businesses should "avoid infringing on the human rights of others and should address adverse human rights impacts with which they are involved." For example, State Street is the largest investor in Lockheed Martin with over $16 billion worth of shares. According to its human rights policy, the company "supports fundamental principles of human rights, such as those adopted in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights." State Street says its policies are "designed to prevent the illegal use of our products and services, including those that may result in human rights violations."Capital Group, which holds at least $13 billion in shares of RTX through different divisions, also endorses the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights and claims to have a "higher level of scrutiny" for businesses that violate the U.N. Global Impact and OECD Guidelines. "We believe that it is important for our portfolio holdings to uphold these fundamental standards in their own operations and throughout their supply chains to maintain their license to operate," its policy states.However, the defense companies that these financiers invest in have helped enable Israel's campaign in Gaza, which the International Court of Justice has suggested could be a genocide. RTX supplies the Israeli military with air-to-surface missiles and cluster bombs, and manufactures engines for the F-15 and F-16 fighter jets that have been used to bomb Gaza. Lockheed Martin provides Israel with hellfire missiles and F-16 and F-35 fighter jets used to bomb Gaza. Missiles manufactured by Lockheed Martin were confirmed to have been used to strike journalists near Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on November 9 of last year. At Lockheed Martin's annual meeting, also held on May 2nd, CEO Jaimes Taiclet said that the company is planning to deliver 20 F-16s and at least 75 F-35s this year. Human Rights Watch and Oxfam have documented that "Israeli authorities have carried out indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks in violation of international humanitarian law following the Hamas-led October 7 attacks in Israel," including collective punishments and depriving civilians of basic necessities. All of this is public knowledge, yet companies like State Street and Capital Group continue to invest."What we do know is that banks' human rights statements are misaligned with their actions. Investors don't have clear evidence that they're actually being implemented," added Jilianne Lyon, who leads shareholder advocacy campaigns at Investor Advocates for Social Justice and worked on the shareholder resolution proposal at RTX.Shareholders have significant leverage to change company behavior through asset allocation, voting, engagement, and divesting, yet they rarely exercise this influence. Felix Nagrawala, Senior Research Manager at ShareAction, told Responsible Statecraft that financiers often "make high-level public promises to follow international law, only to invest in weapons companies and block shareholder resolutions seeking to mandate reports from those companies on how weapons are used and their human rights impact."Indeed, during RTX's earnings call on April 23, no investors asked about potential human rights violations or how these weapons are being used, even though the State Department published its country report on Israel just a day earlier that detailed "arbitrary or unlawful killings" by government agents.Instead, investors wanted to talk about the $90 billion aid package to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. "Could you speak a little bit to the supplemental that got through the House and how that plays out for your defense business. What goodies are in there for you guys?" asked Ron Epstein, an analyst from Bank of America. "Think GEM-T, NASAMS, Patriot, AMRAAM, AIM9X, Israel, we kind of handicapped that as about 30% addressable, stockpile replenishment, Iron Dome, David's Sling procurements," said Chris Calio, who became RTX's new CEO at the shareholder meeting. "We think our product portfolio is pretty well positioned to address the needs in each of those theaters," Calio continued. Many of these weapons have been used in Israel's offensive in Gaza. Bank of America holds over $1.7 billion worth of shares in RTX and endorses the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, the International Labor Organization's Fundamental Conventions, and the U.N. Guiding Principles. According to their human rights policy, the bank seeks to mitigate adverse human rights impacts "directly linked to us through strong client selection procedures which are core to our responsible growth strategy."William Haldin, a spokesperson for Bank of America, told Responsible Statecraft that "The shares you're referencing would be owned by clients and held in their accounts at Bank of America (or Merrill Lynch) not shares actually owned by the bank. Unfortunately, some advocacy groups are mistaken when they make reports and wrongly attribute ownership to us. It's unfortunate." Capital Group and State Street did not respond to requests for comment.Joe Herbert, a Senior Research Officer at ShareAction, told Responsible Statecraft that the daylight between Wall Street and the defense companies they support creates room for plausible deniability. "It is difficult for arms companies to claim that they are abiding by the UN Guiding Principles, but for an investor there is another degree of separation," said Herbert.Why even have human rights policies if these companies won't act on them? In short, because of the cover the U.S. government provides Israel which in turn shields defense companies and their shareholders from criticism. For example, at a press briefing in March, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said "We have not found them [Israel] to be in violation of international humanitarian law, either when it comes to the conduct of war or when it comes to the provision of humanitarian assistance." Even though the U.N. Guiding Principles exist "independently of States' abilities and/or willingness to fulfill their own human rights obligations," Wall Street pays little attention. Instead, it appears they are more interested in the "goodies."

Of all the foreign policy challenges President Joe Biden faces, most difficult is the war in Gaza. That is not because of the apparent geopolitical stakes; as Biden often says, China poses the most important long-term challenge and Russia is next. But while important, what happens between Israel and the Palestinians, as well as elsewhere in the Middle East, has not been in the same league.Yet because of the war in Gaza, with its linkage to overall Israeli-Palestinian relations and risks of escalation to other parts of the region, there may soon be an explosion dwarfing all other concerns facing Biden and his team. There is also another important reason that the war in Gaza now occupies center stage for the Biden administration: America's attitudes towards and relations with Israel. Since Israel's creation in the wake of World War II, most Americans have considered U.S. ties with the Jewish state as special, both because of its founding as a democracy committed to values similar to America's and a shared perspective of "never again" stemming from the Holocaust. Even when Israel has fallen short, as for many years in its treatment of Palestinians, most Americans have given Israel the benefit of the doubt. Except on a handful of occasions, Washington consistently "has had Israel's back" in Middle East crises and conflicts. For both interests and values reasons, therefore, it was natural that immediately following the horrendous October 7 Hamas assault on southern Israel, in which some 1,200 people were killed and 240 more taken hostage, Biden declared total support for Israel's military retaliation. His position was initially supported by most Americans, largely on a bipartisan basis. But then the toll of destruction in Gaza mounted — as of this past week, more than 16,000 Palestinians have been killed, at least 40,000 more wounded, and more than 85 percent of the Strip's population of more than two million has been rendered homeless with no safe place to go. All of this has been vividly displayed on U.S. television and cable media. Thus, the Biden administration began to rethink its hands-off support for Israel's military campaign — but only with respect to its tactics, not its overall policy of destroying Hamas.Washington worked through intermediaries, principally Qatar, to obtain a "pause" in the Gaza fighting in order to get Hamas to release some hostages and increase the flow of humanitarian assistance from Egypt into Gaza. Following the end of the pause, however, U.S. appeals to Israel have been limited to try to minimize civilian casualties in Gaza, or, as Secretary of State Antony Blinken put it, "taking more effective steps to protect the lives of civilians." But so long as Israel continues to pursue the extirpation of Hamas, significantly limiting civilian casualties is impossible, as the Biden team must recognize. Notably, the world sees that Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has essentially rebuffed Biden, which impacts on U.S. credibility elsewhere, especially since the United States is universally seen as Israel's sole patron. Certainly, America's reputation for promoting humanitarian concerns has been severely damaged. Both factors argue for the president to press Israel immediately to declare a cease-fire, not just a temporary "pause," but one designed to end the war. Indeed, if we are to believe Israel's own estimates, Hamas's military capacities have already been heavily degraded, and the possibility of it again being able to mount a serious attack on Israel is low.The gravity of risks in the Levant and potentially throughout the region means that the United States (and others) cannot once again return to indifference when this war ends. Biden has shown he is aware of this, and has recommitted himself to pursuing the so-called "two-state solution." For years, however, it has been largely a mantra; and while it is the best outcome, its prospects are now even more remote given renewed Israeli fears provoked by the October 7 attack and its attendant atrocities, as well as increased Palestinian bitterness over the massive destruction and loss of life in Gaza. Yet time is not on the side of "orderly diplomacy" that for a half-century has been the usual course. There is already a major risk of a new intifada on the West Bank, as most Palestinians have lost any hope of Israel's willingness to recognize their basic human rights, much less permit a Palestinian state. They also see that Israel will not stop West Bank settlers from displacing and even murdering Palestinian civilians. The Palestinians also cannot count on support from Arab states. No Arab leader really cares for the Palestinians and none has even called into question their existing treaties with Israel or the so-called Abraham Accords. Nor is it conceivable that, to do the necessary diplomatic work, the U.N. or countries other than the U.S. can lead or have any chance of success. Nothing will be possible unless Washington takes charge and makes clear to Israel that, as the occupying power, it must change its policies and practices toward the Palestinians. On December 6 , U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres reiterated his "appeal for a humanitarian ceasefire to be declared." In the U.N. Security Council Friday, the United States vetoed the resolution and was joined only by Britain's abstention. The Biden administration thus tied itself even more to Israel's slaughter in Gaza, carried out in major part with U.S.-supplied bombs. The veto further cheapened U.S. political and moral standing and made it harder for Biden to be seen as credible as a diplomatic leader once the war ends.Until October 7, President Biden and his team gave Israel-Palestinian relations short shrift. So far, everyone has been lucky that the crisis has not spread across the region, with the possibility of wider war. Even so, Israel and Hezbollah have come to blows; Yemen has taken some pot-shots; and while Iran has been careful not to get directly involved, its proxies in Iraq and Syria have been engaged in some incidents.But luck is not a policy. The president must know that the Israeli-Palestinian crisis can't again be pushed aside when this war ends. He needs to rebuild trust in the United States for strategic competence and then as an honest broker. He needs to show that the United States will place its own interests first, not anyone else's. He needs to augment his foreign policy inner circle with outside experts in strategy and regional dynamics, but free from biases. And he needs to be prepared to run risks in American domestic politics.It's a difficult agenda, but nothing less will enable President Biden to protect and promote U.S. strategic, political, and moral interests.

Many are seeing the current impasse over the future of U.S. aid to Ukraine as the ultimate manifestation of congressional dysfunction. Following several attempts, the Senate in February passed a $95 billion bill that includes most of the Biden administration's previous requests, minus border funding. That bill sits in limbo in the House, with Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who, while signaling he wants a vote on it, has so far been unwilling to bring it to the floor. Last month House Democrats introduced an arcane "motion to discharge" petition, which could allow supporters to bring the bill to a vote if 218 members agree. While 191 have signed the petition, the odds of finding another 27 appear daunting, given the number of progressive Democrats who oppose military assistance for Israel, and opposition by Republicans to bypassing the Speaker.This situation — while distressing to the Ukrainians, and it seems, the foreign policy establishment — presents an opportunity to reestablish some measure of congressional control, if only in a limited area. Members of Congress wary of presidential overreach and endless military intervention can use this delay to push the administration to define its strategy for Ukraine more transparently. Such a definition is essential for Congress, and the voters they represent, to evaluate the total costs, in treasure and risk of escalation, of our current policy.A common task for government bureaucrats is drafting responses to congressional questions for the record sent to their agencies. These QFRs range from in-the-weeds clarifications of budgets to essentially rhetorical questions on why a particular senior administration official is clueless, and everything in between. The best QFRs can cause policymakers to question some of their assumptions. Since the Ukraine war began, the administration's statements have been opaque, often contradictory, and sometimes lacking in elementary logic. We are past the point where the American people deserve straight answers on where this war is going, what our real critical interests are, and how we can best achieve them.Before approving further military assistance for Ukraine, lawmakers should ask, preferably in hearings with administration officials, or at least in detailed letters, a number of overarching questions.The first should be: Can you define what constitutes victory in this war? Does it require Ukraine recapturing all its internationally recognized territory, as President Zelensky and others maintain? Or can victory be defined more simply as preventing the collapse of the current government? What do we mean by providing Ukraine aid "as long as it takes"? The Biden administration should provide actual analysis, based on U.S. national interests, and not simply Ukrainian government talking points.Second, if our definition of victory is the expulsion of all Russian forces from Ukrainian territory, how plausible is that from a military perspective? Can the Biden administration provide a historical example in which a numerically smaller force, without air superiority, successfully attacked a larger force entrenched in strong defensive positions hundreds of miles long, dislodged that force, and inflicted more casualties on the defender than it suffered itself while on the offensive?Next, there has been much speculation about the risks of nuclear escalation, and whether Russian statements are merely aggressive bluffing, with no likelihood such weapons would be used. During the Cold War, wasn't it U.S. doctrine to implicitly threaten to use tactical nuclear weapons, not just to deter the Soviet Union from attacking the US homeland or using nuclear weapons in Europe, but to deter a conventional attack by the Warsaw Pact? If those threats were credible, why would Putin not consider using tactical nuclear weapons if he were facing a conventional defeat in which Ukraine threatened to retake Crimea and the Donbas, areas Russia now considers part of its territory?Fourth, a major talking point has been that a Russian defeat would deter China from attacking Taiwan, and represent a victory for the democratic world over an authoritarian axis. If this is a rationale to keep the war going, wouldn't China take us at our word, and decide that a Russian defeat is an unacceptable red line? Why wouldn't China begin providing munitions, artillery, tanks, and aircraft to Russia to prevent such an outcome?Fifth, in addition to Ukraine's shortage of ammunition and weapons, we increasingly hear about a manpower shortage, and an inability to replace casualties. Despite the battlefield situation, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian men remain outside the country or are in Ukraine but making extraordinary efforts to avoid being drafted. Is this due to dissatisfaction with the current government, or a sense that while it was important to save the country in 2022, it's not worth continued fighting to retake Crimea and Donbas, or something else? Regardless of its cause, why should the American taxpayer be more committed to a Ukrainian victory than hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian citizens themselves are?And finally, following Ukraine's unsuccessful counteroffensive last year, Russia is now undertaking limited attacks in several areas, using its superiority in artillery and airpower to wear down Ukrainian defenses. The Biden administration often states that its objective is to give Ukraine as strong a position on the battlefield as possible going into any negotiations. Is it possible that Ukraine is now in the best position militarily that it can reasonably hope for? Is it time for us to urge Ukraine to begin negotiations now, based on realities on the ground, rather than strive for maximum objectives, before it loses any more territory, and its bargaining position is further weakened?***Questions such as these would help start the dialogue on how our policy should evolve. The result may be a security assistance package much smaller than what the administration is proposing. There may be consensus to include, for example, artillery ammunition and shorter range air defense missiles to defend Ukraine's current positions, while excluding longer range munitions and aircraft. Those systems, by allowing strikes inside Russia, might encourage Ukraine to pursue unrealistic victory conditions, reducing the chances for diplomacy.For this approach to succeed, two elements are essential. First, members of Congress must make clear their sympathy for the Ukrainian people and their suffering. The point is not whether Ukraine is justified in seeking the return of its territory — it certainly is. The question is whether this goal is in any way realistic. Since the answer is likely "no," to continue throwing away lives as a performative gesture is immoral as well as pointless. Congress might consider a bill that separates out humanitarian assistance and voting for that now, since those funds are needed regardless of military policy.Second, this approach must be a bipartisan effort, with lawmakers on the left and right working together toward a common goal. So far certain Republicans have been in the lead on this issue, with Democrats lagging behind. More than a year has elapsed since the fiasco in late 2022, when the Congressional Progressive Caucus was forced to retract its already anodyne call for diplomacy. Progressives must overcome their fear of White House displeasure and attack from the Washington foreign policy establishment. People will take notice when similar questions are raised by members of both the Freedom Caucus and "the Squad." Members of Congress who favor endless military intervention have no problem with bipartisan cooperation, and those who think differently need to catch up.With the current effort in the House to act on the Senate's bill, the window is closing to ask tough questions. If Congress is to have any meaningful voice, these issues must be addressed as soon as possible.

The withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq in December 2011, once seen as a triumph for the Obama administration, became a cautionary tale as the rise of ISIS prompted their return in 2014.
This is one reason why U.S. troops have remained in Iraq, despite the successful dismantling of ISIS by the end of 2018. Since then, the degradation of ISIS has continued, and any benefits of keeping U.S. troops there as a stopgap against its resurgence are now overshadowed by the risks of exposure to the tit-for-tat game of face-saving exchanges of fire, with Iran-aligned militias.
In Iraq, Washington cannot have it all, but with a touch of creativity and realistic expectations, it can still adequately safeguard its interests after U.S. troops leave, likely with reduced cost and better outcomes.The United States remains the most important enabler of Iraq's security forces and largest single donor of humanitarian assistance to Iraq. Congress has approved $1.25 billion in Foreign Military Financing (FMF) for Iraq — allocated at $250 million annually — from 2019 through 2023. Since 2014, the U.S. has delivered a total of $3.5 billion in humanitarian aid to Iraq. This aid extends well beyond self-serving interests to tangibly improve the lives of Iraqis, including rehabilitating nine water treatment plants in Basra, a stronghold of Iran-aligned militias, providing clean water to 640,000 people, and offering cash assistance to those displaced in Erbil due to the war with ISIS. The U.S. has invested tens of millions of dollars in other projects, too, from the maintenance of the Mosul Dam to the preservation of historic and cultural sites, to financing higher education. In many other countries, such investments would earn Washington's leaders great respect. Not so in Iraq, where Secretary of State Antony Blinken wore body armor during his visit to Baghdad last November. But this measure is aimed at protecting against a specific segment of Iraqi society, namely certain Iran-aligned militias and largely stems from the Trump administration's choice to assassinate Qods Force commander Qassem Soleimani, who was accompanied by Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy head of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), outside Baghdad's airport in 2020.
Other underlying issues that haunt the relationship include lingering resentment from the early years of the U.S. occupation (of which the younger generation has no recollection), real and perceived violations of Iraqi sovereignty by U.S. strikes, opportunistic blame-shifting by Iraqi politicians, and a significant gap between the expectations of ordinary Iraqis for U.S. commitment to their country and the actual level of U.S. investment. This dynamic has created, at times, an antagonistic attitude towards the United States, notwithstanding substantial aid.
The dynamic is further complicated by the ongoing presence of U.S. troops in Iraq. While some Iraqis genuinely desire the withdrawal of U.S. troops, the arrangement serves the Iraqi government and certain quasi-integrated Iran-aligned militias quite well. The U.S. troop presence helps contain ISIS, ensures ongoing U.S. aid to Iraq, and provides Iran-aligned militias with a new self-serving adversary in place of ISIS, while they enrich themselves with corrupt business schemes.
Another reason Iraq is willing to accommodate U.S. troops is the influence exerted by the U.S. Federal Reserve over its economy given Iraq's lack of a functional banking system. There is also a widespread concern that if Iraq were to expel U.S. troops, the U.S. might cease permitting dollar transactions, thereby isolating its economy. Although the Iraqi government will periodically express concerns over U.S. strikes violating Iraqi sovereignty, it stops short of expelling U.S. troops. However, with each attack on U.S. troops by Iran-aligned militias and the subsequent retaliatory strikes, the U.S. military mission in Iraq encounters challenges shaped by Iraqi and U.S. domestic politics, along with the potential for U.S. casualties.
The more pertinent question for U.S. policymakers is how this arrangement serves U.S. interests?
Washington lacks the troop numbers, capacity, political will, or plain foolishness to try to defeat the Iran-aligned militias, and retaliatory strikes only deter them temporarily. Washington is poorly placed to fully understand let alone influence Iraq's intricate politics and elite bargains. Thus, it's time to envision ways to protect U.S. interests in Iraq without a prolonged deployment of troops.
Acknowledging some hard truths is the initial step. Iraq will always be a more vital interest to Iran than it is to the United States. Most Shi'a stakeholders, spanning the Iraqi political spectrum, would prefer to be independent of pressures exerted by either the U.S. or Iran; they think of themselves, after all, as Iraqis. If forced to choose, they would hitch their wagons to Iran rather than the United States — Iraq will always be on Iran's border and, for the foreseeable future, will depend on Iran to meet Iraq's energy needs.
The presence of Iran-aligned militias in Iraq is a lasting reality. The primary U.S. objective in Iraq should be a politically stable Iraq, averting significant sectarian violence and territorial losses to groups like ISIS. As David Schenker, senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, recently argued, the latter can be achieved by leaving a modest U.S. presence in the Iraqi Kurdish region to aid counterterrorism efforts. What proponents and critics of withdrawal often get wrong is that they view Iraq as an adversary. It doesn't have to be if relations are normalized.
Polls indicate that economic development and corruption are more significant concerns for the average Iraqi today than security. A considerable number of Iraqis desire a more assertive U.S. stance against corruption, increased engagement in development initiatives, and a more candid critique of their political system's shortcomings. Washington should leverage its strengths, such as establishing robust anti-money laundering frameworks, implementing technical projects, maintaining infrastructure, and promoting human development.
These tangible forms of aid prove more impactful than other efforts dedicated to nurturing media and civil society, domains better suited for homegrown development. U.S. troops grant insights into the political and security developments of the country, but Washington should still be able to focus on areas where U.S. assistance is genuinely desired and needed after their withdrawal and potentially with less risk.
U.S. Ambassador Alina Romanowski is venturing into Iraqi society as much as possible, considering the restrictions she faces. In March of last year, she visited Mosul for the first time — a city liberated in part by overwhelming U.S. airpower and largely undergoing reconstruction with help from the U.S. after the ISIS conflict — a trip long made impossible due to security restrictions. She has engaged with various political leaders, including former Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and Shi'a theologian Ammar Al-Hakim.
However, her freedom of travel is limited compared to European counterparts, and she faces obstacles in meeting certain political and military figures for various reasons, not the least of which is that some are Specially Designated Nationals under U.S. sanctions. Removing U.S. troops could make it more politically tenable for U.S. diplomats to engage with Iraq as it is.
The low U.S. troop presence is invisible to most Iraqis. This doesn't mean it can't be used as a political football in intramural Iraqi games. But it is no accident that in the wake of each groundswell for ending the U.S troop presence, no action is ever taken. The Iraqis, who recognize the fragility of their state building enterprise, are not eager to experiment with a landscape devoid of U.S. troops. Many Iraqis outside of the Iran-aligned militias also see the U.S. military presence as a counterweight to Iranian influence. Some also fear that if U.S. troops leave, the benefits they receive through U.S. management of their monetary system will also go away.
It is not the U.S. military presence per se that is the problem from a restraint perspective. It is rather the fortress mentality of the official U.S. civilian presence. This imposes a heavy cost on the sustainability of diplomacy worldwide.
The U.S. Embassy operations in Baghdad cost about $1 billion per year. If this were a Defense Department responsibility, this figure would merit a shoulder shrug. But in comparison, the State Department's budget is miniscule — a vivid illustration of U.S. priorities — and its outlays in Iraq crowd out diplomatic initiatives elsewhere. The U.S. can withdraw militarily from Iraq, while continuing to facilitate temporary training missions. Most importantly, the U.S. should engage more broadly with Iraqi society and leave behind the fortress mentality that has hobbled U.S. diplomacy in Iraq.

Following immense pressure from Israel and its most fervent supporters, the Biden administration announced recently that it will keep giving weapons to five Israeli units that had committed "gross violations of human rights," including a notorious battalion whose soldiers killed an elderly Palestinian-American man in the West Bank in 2022.The decision drew sharp backlash from legal analysts and former officials, who noted that the State Department's own experts had found the units in violation of the "Leahy law," a 1997 statute that is supposed to stop foreign militaries from using U.S. weapons in war crimes.In a sense, the move was standard. Israel has long been able to dodge U.S. laws surrounding arms transfers, and it even gets a special process for Leahy vetting that leaves more room for political interference, according to a former State Department official.Indeed, the Biden administration has shown little public interest in holding Israel accountable for alleged war crimes even as Israel begins its assault on Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians have sought shelter amid the war. While the White House has reportedly held up a pair of weapons transfers in recent days, it's carefully avoided giving a reason for the move, leaving open the possibility that the delay was caused by logistical problems.Tim Rieser brings a unique perspective to these issues. During a long tenure as an aide to former Sen. Patrick Leahy, Rieser drafted the law that Israeli units now stand accused of violating. Today, he's pushing for real enforcement of U.S. policy on weapons transfers as a senior adviser to Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.).In an email exchange, RS asked Rieser about whether the Leahy law has ever really been applied to Israel and why policymakers should care. The following conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.RS: You played a major role in the drafting of the Leahy law. From what you understand, is the Biden administration applying the law to Israel as it was originally intended?Rieser: No, and Sen. Leahy has said the same. In its long history, the Leahy law has never been applied to Israel. Yet the administration insists it's being applied consistently worldwide. If that were true, there would have been any number of instances when the law was applied to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). A good example, and there are many, was the fatal shooting of journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, after which Secretary Blinken called for a credible, thorough investigation and that those responsible be held accountable. None of that happened, and no action was taken by the United States under the Leahy law. The reality is that the law is applied differently with respect to Israel in multiple ways, with the result that it has never been applied to deny U.S. assistance to any IDF unit. As to why, I think it is due to a lack of political will.RS: Has the Biden administration followed the intended process for evaluating violations by Israel? Is Israel capable of holding its own units accountable for violations that may occur?Rieser: Israel, like any country, can hold accountable members of its security forces who commit gross violations of human rights, which are crimes everywhere. It's a question of political will and, in some countries, judicial capacity. In four IDF cases, the State Department determined that the individuals responsible for gross violations were appropriately punished. But two of those cases involved fatal shootings of unarmed Palestinians for which the shooters served nine and zero months in prison, respectively.In the fifth case, the Secretary determined the unit committed a gross violation after a Palestinian-American was killed more than two years ago. But instead of applying the Leahy law, the State Department has been discussing remediation of the unit with the Israeli government. Remediation is a key goal of the Leahy law, but U.S. assistance to that unit should have been cut off a long time ago.RS: Why should policymakers care about applying the law uniformly, particularly when it comes to close U.S. partners?Rieser: The law doesn't apply one standard to some countries and a different standard to others. No country is above the law. If a government doesn't want to comply with the law, they shouldn't receive U.S. assistance. But beyond that, the U.S. wants partners that respect human rights and abide by the laws of war, not partners that commit crimes with impunity.RS: What pathways are there to legislate meaningful conditions on military aid to Israel?Rieser: There are no pathways currently for legislative conditions on U.S. assistance for Israel. That opportunity came and went with the recent passage of the supplemental appropriations bill. The next opportunity would be in the context of the fiscal year 2025 appropriations bill, which will be marked up in the appropriations committee in June or July.RS: In what ways are Sen. Welch and his like-minded colleagues putting pressure on the administration to change its tack on weapons transfers to Israel? Have you seen any shifts in the administration's thinking on this issue?Rieser: Sen. Welch has spoken repeatedly about the need for Congress to stop supporting a war strategy that he believes is fundamentally flawed. He was one of only three members to vote in the Senate against the supplemental appropriations bill, specifically because of the additional funding for offensive weapons for Israel.We have not seen any noticeable shift in the administration's policy, at least not to the extent of withholding or conditioning U.S. assistance to the IDF, although it's also clear that the administration is trying hard to reduce civilian casualties and address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.RS: The Biden administration will have to report to Congress Wednesday about whether Israel has abided by U.S. and international law in its war in Gaza. Do you expect that the report will acknowledge widespread allegations of illegal Israeli conduct? What message will it send if the report fails to acknowledge these allegations?Rieser: I doubt it will go that far. If the report accepts assurances of the Israeli government that it is abiding by international law and not impeding access to humanitarian aid, the message it will send is that, as a practical matter, the National Security Memorandum didn't mean much, and the administration is still unwilling to hold Israel to a higher standard.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is vowing to launch an invasion of Rafah, a city located along the Gaza-Egypt border where more than 1.5 million Palestinians currently shelter.Egypt's stakes are extremely high given how much spillover from Gaza into the Sinai Peninsula could be destabilizing. Cairo understandably wants this war to be over immediately.A massive refugee influx into the Sinai from Gaza could result in Palestinians waging an armed resistance against Israel from Egyptian soil — a nightmarish scenario from Cairo's perspective. Egypt also does not want to be seen as accepting Palestinian refugees in exchange for money from the U.S., which would contribute to perceptions on the "Arab Street" that President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi's government is complicit in a "Nakba 2.0."Understanding Egypt's vulnerability to spillover from Gaza requires considering Cairo's other foreign policy challenges too. The Gaza war's spread into the Red Sea has harmed Egypt's economy in the form of lost Suez Canal revenue with ships rerouting to avoid the body of water altogether. Additionally, Rafah isn't the only border security crisis concerning Egyptian officials. "They've got Sudan in the south, which is a mess. To the west, Libya is a mess. So basically, everywhere Egypt looks now is a problem. There's also the issue of the Renaissance Dam," noted Kenneth Katzman, a Senior Fellow at the Soufan Center, in an interview with RS.The U.S. RoleSince October, Egyptian diplomacy has been key to efforts aimed at implementing a ceasefire, negotiating hostage-prisoner swaps, and delivering Gaza humanitarian assistance. As a result, the Biden administration perceives Egypt to be more indispensable than ever. Notably, Biden and his team haven't recently criticized the Sisi government's human rights record — a major contrast to Biden's rhetoric as a presidential candidate.The White House understands Cairo's concerns and Biden's public position is that Israel should not wage a full-scale assault on Rafah without ensuring the safety of Palestinians sheltering there. But Egypt continues to be frustrated with Biden's refusal to deploy Washington's leverage to pressure Israel into actually changing its conduct on the ground."Washington's support [for Egypt on this front has been] confined to making clear its opposition to any full-scale transfer of refugees, forced, unforced, permanent, or temporary," Charles Dunne, a former U.S. diplomat who served in Cairo and Jerusalem, told RS. "It is pushing back on talk in Israel — so far unofficial — that a mass population transfer could be part of the solution to Israel's Gaza problem," he added."My personal conclusion is that [U.S. officials] probably made the point [to their Egyptian counterparts] that some of the Gazans would inevitably be needed to be let into Egypt in order to prevent a greater humanitarian catastrophe as the Israelis move military operations closer to Rafah," Dave DesRoches, an assistant professor at the National Defense University in Washington, DC, told RS. "My guess is the Egyptians are concerned both that the Gazan presence would become permanent as well as that Egypt would be seen as abetting the Israeli military operations," he added.If Israel wages an all-out assault on Rafah and there is a massive displacement of Palestinians into Egypt, Washington would probably financially assist Cairo. But Katzman belives the White House is likely more focused on trying to prevent that from happening. "My impression is that [the Biden] administration is not really tackling the idea of what if there is a flood of refugees into the Sinai, while I think [its] strategy is to make sure that doesn't happen in the first place," he told RS.Katzman added, "The U.S. is encouraging Israel to coordinate with Egypt to the extent possible, which I think is happening. But beyond that, I don't think the administration has done any planning because they don't expect that worst case scenario to happen.""Cairo worries that even entertaining the idea for emergency planning purposes could be seen as a green light to the IDF. That appears to be where we are for now, and Cairo has focused on building a fortified buffer zone along the border with Gaza to prevent a refugee crisis," said Dunne.Red Sea CrisisAnother important aspect of U.S.-Egypt relations amid the Gaza war and its regionalization is the Red Sea security crisis. Since November, the Houthis have been launching missiles and drones at ships off Yemen's coast, claiming to support Gaza by targeting vessels linked to Israel, the U.S., and the UK. As of last month, Egypt's Suez Canal revenue had decreased by 40 to 50 percent throughout the crisis, according to Sisi.Gordon Gray, the former U.S. ambassador to Tunisia, told RS that there is "strong incentive for Egypt to assist the U.S. efforts to guarantee freedom of the seas" given what is at stake for Egypt in terms of Suez Canal fees amid Houthi maritime attacks.But despite economic setbacks from the Red Sea security crisis, Egypt did not join Operation Prosperity Guardian (OPG) and Cairo has played no official role in the Washington-led bombing campaign against the Houthis that began almost two months ago. This is not because Cairo doesn't share the West's concerns about the Houthi attacks on vessels. To the contrary, Egypt and the U.S. strongly agree that no Yemeni group should be allowed to disrupt maritime shipping in the region. In fact, when Saudi Arabia launched Operation Decisive Storm in March 2015, Egypt committed its naval forces to provide security in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. At that time, Sisi referred to the Red Sea as an "Arab lake" and identified the Bab al-Mandab as important to "Egyptian and Arab national security."Public opinion at home mostly explains Cairo not joining OPG nor formally supporting the U.S.-UK strikes. Many Egyptians would now see their government overtly aligning with Washington and London against the Houthis as Cairo facilitating Israel's war on Gaza."Egypt has refused to join [OPG] and, while it's possible that Egypt is making some behind-the-scenes contribution, any such contribution is pretty much invisible to the naked eye at the moment. If anything, it's the very least they can get away with doing," according to Dunne.DesRoches believes that the Egyptians have probably been allowing London to use Egyptian airspace for bombing Houthi targets in Yemen. "Extrapolating, I'm confident that U.S. support, intelligence, and resupply flights are probably transiting Egyptian airspace," he told RS. "I have a slightly lower degree of confidence that the Egyptians share intelligence and the common operating picture from their various assets to locate missile tracks and launch sites. This is probably limited more by the lack of Egyptian capacity than by any policy decision to not cooperate." Ultimately, the U.S.-Egypt alliance remains strong. But Cairo must approach this relationship with more caution given Washington's role in Gaza's destruction and its growing isolation in the Arab-Islamic world.

Israel's attacks in Gaza reflect a "systematic disregard for fundamental principles of international law" and "raise grave concerns regarding the [Biden] Administration's compliance with both U.S. and international law," according to an explosive new report from a prominent group of former U.S. officials and legal scholars."The Israeli government [has] demonstrated a clear pattern of negligent targeting along this campaign, [as well as] indifference and callousness to civilian harm and suffering and a disregard for international law," Wes Bryant, an Air Force master sergeant and a targeting expert who contributed to the report, said during a Wednesday press conference."Their campaign has been executed in a manner wholly inconsistent with U.S. targeting methodologies and best practices," Bryant added, noting that "the majority of strikes" that he has reviewed would not have been approved by U.S. officials.The report, which the group submitted to the State Department last week, is meant to inform the administration's thinking ahead of a May 8 deadline to determine whether Israel's actions in Gaza have complied with U.S. law regarding arms transfers. Members of the task force also plan to brief members of Congress on the results of their inquiry next week.The State Department's report would force a suspension of certain U.S. weapons transfers to Israel if its findings reflect the publicly available evidence included in the task force's report, the authors say. Meanwhile, the Biden administration is reportedly planning to block a notorious Israeli unit from receiving U.S. military grant aid due to allegations of human rights violations.As the task force released its report, President Joe Biden was set to sign off on an additional $17 billion in military aid for Israel, part of a broader aid package for U.S. partners abroad. The package also blocks funding for the primary United Nations aid organization operating in Gaza, a measure that could further complicate the humanitarian crisis on the ground.Josh Paul — a former State Department official who resigned in protest last year — led the inquiry alongside Noura Erakat, a Palestinian-American legal scholar. Other members of the task force include Bryant and Charles Blaha, who led the State Department's human rights bureau until August of last year. Legal experts Adil Haque and Luigi Daniele also contributed to the report.From a list of thousands of different incidents, the task force identified 16 cases in which it could conclude with high certainty that Israeli forces used American weapons in attacks that likely violated the laws of war or U.S. targeting standards. In 11 of the 16 cases, the report found that Israel has still not identified its intended target or justified its attack.One alleged violation came on Oct. 10 of last year, when the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) flattened a six-story residential building in Gaza City with a U.S.-made bomb, killing 40 civilians and failing to hit the apparent target — a low-level Hamas militant who was not home at the time. A similar set of strikes killed at least 106 civilians near the Nuseirat refugee camp on Oct. 31, the report notes.The task force also cited the recent killing of seven international aid workers from World Central Kitchen, as well as a November attack on a clearly marked ambulance that led to 21 casualties, including five children.The task force found several Israeli violations of a U.S. law that bans the provision of U.S. weapons to any state that blocks the flow of American humanitarian aid. The report notes that Israel has repeatedly refused U.S. demands to increase the amount of aid entering Gaza, adding that the IDF has directly attacked humanitarian convoys on several occasions.The aid-related violations are notable given the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza, where famine has begun to take hold. Multiple members of Congress have called on the Biden administration to cut off certain military aid to Israel under the law.Following the recent Israeli killing of Western aid workers, Israel says it plans to increase the flow of aid into Gaza. A United Nations tracker showed a slight uptick in the number of humanitarian trucks entering the besieged strip, but aid groups say the amount of aid entering the strip remains far too low to slow the growing famine.The task force's report highlights the difficulties of the Biden administration's attempt to balance its desire to show ironclad support for Israel with widespread outrage at the IDF's actions in Gaza, which have left at least 34,000 Palestinians dead and displaced nearly everyone living in the strip, according to local officials.In response to pressure from prominent lawmakers, led by Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), President Joe Biden issued a memorandum in February mandating that the U.S. get assurances from partners that their use of U.S. weapons does not violate U.S. or international law. The memo also forces the State Department to report to Congress by May 8 on whether those assurances are credible.The White House may have hoped that the war would be over by the time it had to submit the upcoming report. But, with no ceasefire in sight, the administration will now have two options: ignore a mountain of publicly available evidence of Israeli violations, or acknowledge that the IDF's actions should disqualify it from receiving U.S. weapons.Paul says there is "room for skepticism as to whether" the Biden administration's report will "accurately reflect" the available evidence of alleged Israeli violations, especially "given the constant assertions from podiums in the White House, the Pentagon and State Department that the U.S. has not identified any violations of international law by the Israel Defense Forces." But he and his colleagues hope that their independent report will add pressure on the White House to recognize the impact that U.S. weapons are having in Gaza."In our report, we detail a number of clear, credible and compelling incidents that should certainly be included in the administration's upcoming reporting to Congress," Paul said at a Wednesday press conference. "These are just the tip of the iceberg but demonstrate the inescapable truth of how U.S.-provided weapons and security assistance are being used by Israel."

As Gaza's humanitarian crisis deepens, a small U.S.-based advisory group hopes to build a temporary port that could bring as many as 200 truckloads of aid into the besieged strip each day, more than doubling the average daily flow of aid, according to a person with detailed knowledge of the maritime corridor plan.The port effort, led by a firm called Fogbow, could start bringing aid into Gaza from Cyprus within 28 days of receiving the necessary funding from international donors. The project would require $30 million to get started, followed by an additional $30 million each month to continue operations, according to the source.The plan is separate from a U.S. military effort to create a floating pier off the shores of Gaza, but Fogbow is prepared to incorporate its operations with the American project if asked, the source said.These new details of Fogbow's plans come as aid groups are desperately searching for ways to increase the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza, where disease and hunger are running roughshod over the Palestinian population. Experts say famine has already set in throughout parts of the strip. Nine in ten children under 5 years old caught an infectious disease in February alone, and seven in ten young children suffered from diarrhea, a key driver of deaths in famine. Palestinians have little capacity to treat such diseases after Israel's destruction of much of Gaza's health infrastructure, according to the International Crisis Group (ICG).Following an Israeli strike that killed seven Western humanitarian workers, international pressure has forced Israel to at least temporarily expand the entry of aid into Gaza. COGAT — the Israeli military's aid coordinator — said it allowed more than 400 trucks to enter Gaza on Monday, a large jump from the daily average of 114 trucks. (The U.N. disputed Israel's accounting, telling the BBC that only 223 trucks were allowed in.)U.N. officials and aid groups say they now need at least 500 trucks per day to soften the crisis gripping Gaza. Israeli officials claim that they now aim to clear as many as 600 trucks to enter the strip daily. Much of this could come through the Erez crossing along Gaza's northern border with Israel, which Tel Aviv recently reopened.But significant challenges remain, both for any maritime corridor plans and for aid delivery over land. Several NGOs have ceased their work in Gaza due to the dangers facing aid workers, more than 200 of whom have been killed since October.In a major new report, ICG found that "Israel in effect disabled 'deconfliction' – or coordinating military and humanitarian activities to ensure safe delivery of assistance in conflict zones." Israeli authorities have also systematically targeted Gaza's police force due to real or alleged ties to Hamas, making it all but impossible to provide security for aid convoys on the ground, according to ICG.Israel's attempts to destroy UNRWA — the backbone of relief efforts in Gaza — and its slow, meticulous inspection of trucks have further complicated aid delivery. And any effort that involves Americans, and U.S. soldiers in particular, risks drawing Washington directly into the war.Fogbow's "Blue Beach" plan addresses some of these concerns. Israeli and Cypriot authorities would inspect and seal the aid in Cyprus, according to the source, who noted that officials would try to pre-clear a warehouse full of aid to be delivered once the sea route starts running. A set of three barges would then run 24/7, dropping aid at a makeshift port facility in Gaza, where it would be distributed by international NGOs or local groups.The Israeli military would provide security at the beach from a distance, the source said. The firm, whose leadership includes a former U.S. general and a former top official at the Pentagon, has also offered to help with deconfliction of aid by bringing in best practices from other conflicts.But any maritime corridor plan falls short on one key metric: time. Jeremy Konyndyk — the head of Refugees International and a former senior USAID official — likened the current situation in Gaza to the outer bands of a hurricane "making landfall as a Cat V." "The priority now must be to stem the damage," Konyndyk argued. "The actions by the U.S. and Israeli governments in the coming weeks will determine whether the famine kills thousands, tens of thousands, or potentially more."Even if it received full funding today, Fogbow's Blue Beach plan couldn't get started until around mid-May. The U.S. military is hoping to set up its own floating pier effort by then as well, though satellite tracking data indicates that at least one of the U.S. ships tapped to help with the project has yet to leave its port in Jacksonville, Florida. The rest of the pier-building fleet, which includes several Army logistics ships, is spread out across the Atlantic and Mediterranean, with some vessels more than two weeks away from Cyprus, where the project will begin in earnest.

The United States is barreling toward another war in the Middle East. The conflict between Israel and Hamas is rapidly escalating across the region and risks dragging the United States directly into the fray. The recent barrage of ballistic missiles and drones launched by Yemen's Houthi movement at Israel — coupled with a statement by the group that such attacks will continue — and the continued attacks on U.S. positions in the region show this conflict is expanding fast. The United States now finds itself on a new war footing with Iran and its regional partners, whom many in Congress have cast as part of a new "Axis of Evil" that includes Russia and China.The Biden administration is preparing for such a scenario, yet adequate measures are not being taken by Washington to prevent such a disaster from transpiring. Fear among the American public that the United States will be dragged into another Middle East war is rising fast: according to a recent Quinnipiac poll, 84% of respondents were either "very" or "somewhat" concerned that the U.S. could be drawn into the conflict. President Biden and his team have repeatedly warned Israel against making the same "mistakes" the United States made following September 11, 2001, but it would appear Washington has yet to learn from our own errors of the past two decades. If the administration does not want to enter another war in the Middle East, it needs to prevent the conflict from pulling in additional actors from across the region. The way the war is being fought at present seems to make that outcome more likely, not less.Following Hamas's terror attack on Israel on October 7, the United States significantly increased its military presence in the Middle East in hopes of deterring a broader regional conflict. The United States deployed two aircraft carrier strike groups, with roughly 7,500 personnel on each, two guided-missile destroyers, and nine air squadrons to the Eastern Mediterranean and Red Sea region. Washington also deployed an additional 4,000 troops to the region, with another 2,000 on standby, adding to the roughly 30,000 troops already in the region.This buildup comes as the conflict is escalating considerably. Over 1,500 Israelis and more than 9,770 Palestinians have died as a result of the war. The situation inside Gaza is dire, with over one million displaced and thousands in desperate need of humanitarian assistance. In the West Bank, violence has also been escalating, with an estimated 152 Palestinians killed by Israeli settlers and soldiers since the war began, resulting in the United States calling on Israel to "protect Palestinians from Israeli extremist settler violence."Outside of the war itself, violence is increasing throughout the region. U.S. forces in the Middle East have already been targeted at least 23 times in Iraq and Syria by groups connected to Iran. In response, U.S. forces conducted airstrikes on two facilities linked to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) in Syria, while vowing to retaliate further if the targeting of U.S. personnel continues. Israel and Hezbollah continue to engage in clashes, with almost 50 Hezbollah fighters killed since October 7. Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, delivered his first public address since the start of the war on Friday Nov. 3, where he stressed the independent decision-making of Hamas in launching its attack on Israel while also pressing for an end to the conflict, but maintained that a region-wide war remains possible. Nasrallah also praised Yemen's Houthis for getting involved. Following the latest barrage of ballistic missiles and drones, the Houthis have now targeted Israel three times since the war began. Israel has also continued to strike Iran-backed militias in Syria following the outbreak of war in Gaza.The Biden administration needs to square up to the fact that a broader war in the Middle East would be ruinous for the United States and the region.Given the relative military weakness of America's regional partners — with the exception of Israel, who would nonetheless be overextended in such a scenario — the United States would have to do the lion's share of the fighting and would bear the majority of its costs. Such a war would result in dramatic new levels of U.S. commitments and entanglements in the region at a time when the Middle East no longer represents a core theater of U.S. interests.The risk of a major war in the Middle East comes as the United States is already deeply engaged in assisting Ukraine against Russia's invasion and trying to deter China in the Indo-Pacific, while carrying a national debt north of $33 trillion and running $1 trillion-plus budget deficits each year in peacetime. Opening a new front in the Middle East while trying to pursue Washington's stated interests in Europe and the Indo-Pacific risks plunging America toward an economic crisis.It goes without saying that for the Middle East itself, such a war would be catastrophic, destabilizing the region politically, economically, and militarily. The war would threaten to empower illiberal actors across the region at the expense of genuine stability. The profound human and material costs would plague the Middle East for generations to come.It should be clear from the past several decades that throwing money, weapons and military assets at the region often has profound negative consequences. In this case, Washington is risking further escalation and even direct U.S. involvement in a region-wide war. Biden needs to make clear that the central U.S. interest is to stay out of the revolving door of Middle East conflicts and avoid being dragged into a ruinous military campaign across the region.

The U.S. has a bad habit of backing its clients to the hilt in their wars. That puts the U.S. in the unenviable position of being implicated in the war crimes that the clients commit while Washington refuses to use the leverage it clearly has to rein its clients in.Just as the U.S. did for years in supporting the Saudi coalition war on Yemen, Washington has reflexively backed Israeli military campaigns over the years, and it has not restricted its military assistance despite repeated attacks on civilian targets. In the current war in Gaza, the Biden administration has not only resisted pressure to call for a ceasefire, but it has also set no red lines that might trigger a reduction or cutoff in aid.The message that the U.S. has sent through its actions is that there will be no consequences for the Israeli government no matter what it does in Gaza. Washington needs to be using its influence to limit the harm done by this war and ideally to bring a halt to the fighting, but instead it is abdicating its responsibility. The current approach is a disaster for the people of Gaza and it is a blot on America's reputation. There is still time to prevent even worse outcomes, but it will require a dramatic change in U.S. policy.The Washington Post recently reported on the administration's unwillingness to put conditions on U.S. assistance to Israel. According to the report, conditioning military aid was considered a "nonstarter" in the administration because it would be unpopular and because of Biden's "personal attachment to Israel." These are poor excuses to justify supporting the status quo and backing the war without qualification. The U.S. could use the considerable leverage that it has to restrain the Israeli government, but the administration doesn't want to because of a combination of fear, ideology, and sentiment.In any relationship between the U.S. and a client, it is irresponsible to rule out a cutoff of military assistance. There must be limits to what the U.S. will permit its clients to do with the weapons it provides them, and when those limits are reached it is imperative that the U.S. halts further assistance. The U.S. should not be aiding and abetting another government when it commits war crimes, but by giving any client an effective blank check, the U.S. is guaranteed to be an accomplice. It makes no difference if U.S. officials issue hollow warnings about following the law when the U.S. is enabling the client's war. The only thing that is likely to focus the attention of a client government in the middle of a war is the prospect of losing some or all of the backing from Washington that it has come to rely on.The Post report also said that the administration believes that Israel's war has been "too severe, too costly in civilian casualties, and lacking a coherent endgame," but the people running the foreign policy of the most powerful country in the world are throwing their hands up in frustration and claiming that they can't do anything about a war that they are actively supporting. If the administration is convinced that the Israeli response has been too harsh and the costs have been too high, they have an obligation to make every effort to change that. There is no excuse for giving up on trying to rein in a client before they have even made the attempt.It is telling that the same administration that prides itself on the importance of American leadership simply will not lead if that means breaking with a client. When the U.S. has extraordinary influence that might be used to mitigate or end an ongoing humanitarian catastrophe, we hear over and over how pitiful and powerless the U.S. suddenly is. We heard much the same thing during the debate over U.S. involvement in Yemen, and it was just as ridiculous then as it is now. The U.S. may not be able to control everything that its clients do, but it can control whether it provides them with weapons and diplomatic cover to make it easier for them to wage their wars.Defenders of the blank check approach will say that a client won't stop its war just because Washington disapproves. That could be right, but in practice when client governments begin to fear that they are losing U.S. support they tend to look for a face-saving way to stop fighting. Maybe the client will keep fighting without U.S. backing, or maybe the threat of removing U.S. support will force them to rethink what they are doing. There is no way to know what the reaction will be until the administration tries to apply the pressure it has so far refused to apply.One of the pitfalls of offering automatic, uncritical support at the start of a conflict is that it makes it politically more difficult to reduce that support when things go wrong. That is why the U.S. should be much more careful about how and when it provides support to other states' wars. Especially when the U.S. has no formal obligations to support another state at war, the default response from Washington should be to refrain from making any major commitments. Unless vital U.S. interests are clearly at stake, there is usually no compelling reason for Washington to throw its support behind another country's war.The U.S. is already overstretched around the world with too many commitments, so it is foolish to volunteer to be involved in additional conflicts. Such involvement not only adds to the immediate burdens on the United States, but it also risks entangling our country in larger conflicts as well. When a war breaks out, the U.S. response should not be to rush to take sides, but to press for a halt to the fighting before it escalates further. Even if entreaties for peace from Washington are rebuffed at first, it is much better for our government to be playing the part of a would-be mediator instead of being an enabler of bloodshed.Giving U.S. clients a blank check is an invitation to abuse and to what international relations scholar Barry Posen has called "reckless driving." That is bad for the U.S. and for regional peace and security, and in the long run it is also bad for the clients themselves. It is long past time that Washington put conditions on the military assistance it provides to its Middle Eastern clients, including Israel, and it should not be afraid of cutting off that assistance when the clients start driving recklessly.

In its military campaign in Gaza, Israel faces a seemingly endless list of alleged human rights violations. International monitors argue the Israel Defense Forces have starved Gazans, targeted journalists attempting to cover the carnage, tortured detainees, and attacked hospitals full of wounded civilians.
The U.S. — a passionate backer of civilian protections in Ukraine — has struggled to find the right way to address these claims while still standing by its long-time partner. The bombing has been "indiscriminate," says President Joe Biden, but perhaps it will improve tomorrow. Killing more than 10,000 women and children in two months is not "genocide," argues White House spokesperson John Kirby, but Hamas' brutal Oct. 7 attacks were.
If human rights are fundamentally a matter of world consensus, then what does it tell us that the United States threatens to cast a second veto against a United Nations Security Council resolution begging for a humanitarian suspension of fighting? What does it mean when a supposed champion of human rights seems to jettison them when it becomes inconvenient? For that matter, why should Israel care about human rights when it perceives its fight as existential?
Kenneth Roth has a unique perspective on these questions. Roth, considered by many to be a dean of the human rights movement, spent nearly three decades as the executive director of Human Rights Watch before stepping down last year to become a visiting professor at Princeton University. Under his leadership, HRW drew flak for, among other things, declaring Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories to be apartheid, all while documenting in meticulous detail abuses committed by Palestinian groups, including Hamas.
RS spoke with Roth to get his thoughts on human rights at a time of crisis. The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
RS: How would you rate the Biden administration's handling of the Gaza crisis from a human rights perspective?
Roth: The Biden administration has been far too deferential to the Israeli Government, despite the pretty clear commission of war crimes in Gaza. And while the administration has pushed to ameliorate some of those war crimes — by pressing for humanitarian access, by urging greater attention to avoiding civilian casualties — that rhetorical push has not been backed by the use of the leverage that the administration has that might have really put pressure on the Israeli government to stop, whether that would be withholding or conditioning ongoing arm sales or military assistance, or even allowing a Security Council resolution to go forward.RS: What would a better approach look like?Roth: The initial problem was that Biden pretty unconditionally wrapped himself in the Israeli government's response to the horrible October 7 attacks by Hamas. If you look at his initial comments, while there were caveats written in about the need to respect humanitarian law, there was no emotional punch behind them. It was pretty clear that Biden simply stood with Israel and was giving it a green light to proceed with its military response to Hamas without much effort, at least during the first few weeks, to ensure that that response really did comply with humanitarian law. So I think the Israeli government got the message that the references to humanitarian law were necessary for certain audiences, but that the administration's heart was not in them.
RS: Would a more forceful form of messaging at the start have led to different results?
Roth: Obviously, it's hard to know the counterfactual. But the U.S. government, which has the greatest leverage of any external actor, didn't really use that leverage to ensure that its periodic rhetorical commitment to the need to respect humanitarian law was matched by its much more forceful embrace of the Israeli military response to Hamas.
RS: I've seen some reporting that the State Department has done internal inquiries as to whether U.S. officials could be legally complicit if Israel is found to have committed war crimes in Gaza. Do you have any thoughts on that question?
Roth: Well, they could be. Biden's references to the Israeli military conducting indiscriminate bombing were clearly not just a verbal slip. It probably reflected the internal conversations that the administration has. The second one even seems to have been somewhat deliberate. And the significance of that is that indiscriminate bombardment is a war crime. As any administration lawyer would know, continuing to provide weapons to a force that is engaged in war crimes can make the sender guilty of aiding and abetting war crimes.
That is not some crazy, wacko theory. That was the basis on which former Liberian President Charles Taylor was convicted by an internationally backed tribunal, the so-called Special Court for Sierra Leone, for providing weapons to the Sierra Leonean rebel group known as the Revolutionary United Front, a group that was notorious for chopping off the limbs of its victims. Because Taylor kept providing arms in return for the RUF's diamonds while he knew the RUF was committing these war crimes, this internationally-backed tribunal found him guilty of aiding and abetting, convicted him, and sentenced him to 50 years in prison, which he is currently serving in a British prison.
RS: My next question is a little tricky, but I'm curious how you approach it. Israel claims that this war is a fight for its very survival. Why should a country that views itself as being in that position care about respecting human rights?Roth: Well, I think the question is why should it care about adhering to international humanitarian law and protocols. It's worth noting that humanitarian law was not drafted by a bunch of human rights activists and peaceniks. This was drafted by the world's leading militaries. It was designed for war, for situations where governments often feel that they are existentially at risk, and these were the limits that the world's leading militaries imposed on themselves. Israel has signed on to these standards, and it claims to abide by them. It has many capable lawyers who could be applying them. It just isn't applying them.
It probably requires a certain psychological analysis to figure out why, but some of the signals being sent from the top indicate a willingness to disregard the requirements of humanitarian law. When you have Defense Minister [Yoav] Galant referring to the residents of Gaza as "human animals," when you have [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu invoking the biblical story of Amalek in which there's a divine injunction to not spare the men, women, children, or animals, these are not-so-subtle signals that the top political and military leadership in Israel doesn't care that much about civilian casualties. This has seemed to have manifested itself in the indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks that the Israeli military has carried out in Gaza.
RS: It seems to me that focusing on war crimes or potential war crimes can sometimes lead to really bad policy outcomes. In this case, Israel is really spotlighting Hamas' alleged war crimes. You think back to the war in Iraq, where there was a lot of highlighting of Saddam's alleged war crimes. How can advocacy for human rights avoid supporting unfettered militarism?
Roth: First, I think it's important to note that war crimes by one side do not justify war crimes by the other. If a warring party could cite the other side's war crimes, you would quickly have no more Geneva Conventions because allegations of war crimes are often made in the passions of conflict. The fact that some people have committed war crimes — in this case, both sides — doesn't justify that others resort to criminal conduct. Now, in terms of military action, few people contest that Israel had every right to respond to Hamas' military attack. It was an extraordinarily lethal military attack. It was ruthless, with widespread murder, rape, abduction, and indiscriminate bombardment. So with an attack of that sort, no one should be surprised that the Israeli government responds. The only real question was, will it respond consistent with humanitarian law? Or would it flout that law?RS: What does all this mean — especially the fact of the U.S. seemingly taking a step back in advocacy for the protection of human rights — what does all this mean for the state of human rights today?
Roth: It is harmful because the U.S. government is such a powerful voice, and when it does seem to make an exception in its human rights advocacy for a close ally like Israel, it discredits the U.S. as a voice for human rights around the world. Now, I should say this is not the only instance of inconsistency on the part of Washington. We're seeing it as well as the Biden administration tries to build alliances to oppose Russia's invasion of Ukraine or to contain China. So while the administration has spoken numerous times about its fundamental commitment to human rights, it's been a very inconsistent commitment. And that inconsistency is probably most visible in the Middle East, which has been essentially a black hole in the administration's human rights policy. It's very difficult to be so permissive of human rights violations in one region of the world and have a whole lot of credibility on human rights in other parts of the world.
This means that one of those powerful voices we have has weakened itself. It's not the first time that has happened. Under [former President Donald] Trump, the U.S. essentially abandoned any pretense of enforcing human rights. Prior administrations have had comparable inconsistencies. The U.S. still has been able to be a useful voice for human rights, despite these inconsistencies, in some cases, but it is a much weaker voice than if it had really been principled and consistent.
RS: How do you see the future of the push to get states to protect human rights? Are we in a moment of crisis that galvanizes change?
Roth: If you look at the various efforts to uphold human rights, they've been quite vigorous in certain cases. There has been a very strong response to Russian war crimes in Ukraine, complete with multiple General Assembly resolutions, the Human Rights Council standing up a commission of inquiry, the International Criminal Court launching an immediate investigation and actually charging Putin and one of his aides with war crimes.
A place where it's been weaker has been, say, China's crimes against humanity against the Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang, where we came within two votes of putting on the agenda a discussion of then-UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet's very strong report on what she called possible crimes against humanity. But we didn't even get that agenda item, so that's a place where the world has been much weaker.
But there's been greater mobilization, greater willingness to speak out on a range of other situations, whether that be Myanmar or Iran, Saudi abuses in Yemen for a time, Sudan, Ethiopia for a time, Venezuela, Nicaragua. So the idea that because there's this black hole in U.S. human rights policy, therefore nothing can get done, that's just not true. A lot gets done, but the defense of human rights is weaker because the U.S. has been an inconsistent supporter of the effort.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) recently sent a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken urging him to get tougher on Azerbaijan for its "brazen campaign of ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh." This follows an earlier statement from Cardin, shortly after Azerbaijan's September "lightning offensive" against Nagorno-Karabakh, that called for the U.S. to "halt security assistance to Azerbaijan," and increase humanitarian support for the 100,000 ethnic Armenians who fled en masse from Nagorno-Karabakh. As of this writing, neither of those things has occurred and the Biden administration has done little to address Azerbaijan's military aggression. While there are undoubtedly myriad reasons for the U.S. government's lukewarm response, one possible explanation is one of Washington's oldest pastimes: lobbying. For years, the Azerbaijan government has been financing a well connected lobbying and influence operation in the U.S. that has worked diligently to keep U.S. military assistance flowing and to ensure that policymakers turn a blind-eye to the country's consistent human rights violations.As documented in a just released Quincy Institute brief, The Lobbying Battle for Nagorno-Karabakh, the government of Azerbaijan has spent millions of dollars on registered lobbyists and much more on illicit influence operations that have helped foster and maintain support for Baku across Europe and the U.S.The End of Nagorno-Karabakh"The United States will not countenance any action or effort – short-term or long-term – to ethnically cleanse or commit other atrocities against the Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh," was an assurance from then-Acting Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Yuri Kim in testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on September 14.
Just five days later, the U.S. did exactly what Kim said it would not, standing idly by on September 19 as Azerbaijan launched an "anti-terrorist" operation against what remained of Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh, leading to the ethnic cleansing of over 100,000 of its residents as they fled to the neighboring Republic of Armenia.
The territorial dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh — the mountainous breakaway region internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but self-governed by Armenians — now appears over as the de facto officials announced that all institutions will be dissolved on January 1, 2024. These developments followed what had been a year of Azerbaijani escalation against Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia proper, including an Azerbaijani blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh which lasted almost 10 months and saw the territory's food, medical, and energy supplies all but run out. When Baku launched its military assault, Washington and Brussels were only able to muster strongly worded statements, but no meaningful reaction.The Azerbaijan LobbyDon't count out Azerbaijan's influence operations in Washington for helping to thwart what should have been a stronger response on Capitol Hill and in the White House. The government of Azerbaijan has spent over $7 million on lobbying and public relations firms registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) since 2015, according to OpenSecrets. Chief among the Azerbaijan lobby's hired guns is BGR Government Affairs, one of Washington's top lobbying firms, which is contracted to serve as a liaison for the Azerbaijan Embassy in the U.S.
FARA filings reveal that the firm contacted congressional offices more than 1,000 times on Azerbaijan's behalf in just the first half of 2023, and that their work included efforts "to ensure there were no negative Azerbaijan amendments on the National Defense Authorization Act" and "fair language for Azerbaijan" in the appropriations process. More generally, BGR "educated policymakers in Congress about the important role Azerbaijan plays as a key security partner of the United States."
In 2018, BGR signed an agreement with another lobbying firm — Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell, and Berkowitz — to aid its efforts on behalf of the Azerbaijan Embassy. An analysis of that firm's FARA filings shows that they've been laser focused on the State, Foreign Operations Subcommittee of the House Committee on Appropriations, which is responsible for, among many other issues, determining how much U.S. military assistance flows to Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Overall, it would seem both firms have been successful at allowing Azerbaijan to dodge criticism and continue to receive millions of dollars in security assistance every year.
Most notably in 2023,the Azerbaijan Embassy hired The Friedlander Group, whose namesake Ezra Friedlander has been a prominent American-Israeli lobbyist for years, rubbing shoulders with a number of top policymakers, including former President Donald Trump. When he was hired by Azerbaijan he immediately put his connections to work, according to his firm's FARA filing, securing meetings with dozens of congressional offices, including even a face-to-face meeting with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).
This is just the tip of the iceberg for Azerbaijan's influence operations in the U.S. As documented by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), the Azerbaijan government has a history of laundering its influence in Europe and the U.S. The "Azerbaijani Laundromat," as described by the OCCRP, was "a complex money-laundering operation and slush fund that handled $2.9 billion over a two-year period through four shell companies." This 2012-2014 scheme which involved funneling government funds through shell companies, included payments to several pro-Azeri Americans, one of whom later pleaded guilty to concealing the fact that a congressional trip to Azerbaijan he'd helped organize was secretly funded by the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR).
Azerbaijan's often illicit influence operations in Europe have dubbed it "caviar diplomacy," given the country's repeated attempts to bribe European officials with all manner of luxury goods, including caviar. At least one investigation resulted in FBI agents raiding the home of the co-chair of the Congressional Azerbaijan Caucus, Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), in January 2022.Armenian Influence in the USArmenians have also sought to influence the U.S. public debate surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh. However, this has been done at a significantly smaller scale than their Azerbaijani counterparts, and the main actors of Armenian lobbying efforts in the U.S. have been the estimated one to two million diaspora Armenians in the U.S.In the early 1990s, during the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, the Armenian diaspora in the U.S. achieved its first major political victory via Section 907 of the 1992 Freedom Support Act, which explicitly prohibited the vast majority of U.S. assistance from the Act to post-Soviet Azerbaijan until Baku "cease[es] all blockades and other offensive uses of force against Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh." However, in 2002, as the "Global War on Terror" was heating up, Azerbaijan was granted a waiver for Section 907 that has allowed over $160 million of U.S. security assistance to flow to the country ever since. Nevertheless, during the war in 2020, Armenians boycotted lobbying and PR firms working for Azerbaijan and, in 2021, President Joe Biden recognized the systemic mass killings of Armenians during World War I as genocide, a long-standing priority of the Armenian diaspora in the U.S. More recently the Senate unanimously passed the "Armenian Protection Act," that would cut off aid to Azerbaijan for at least two years. For Armenians, these developments are viewed as too little too late, however, as Azerbaijan has already achieved what it wanted in Nagorno-Karabakh with little international pushback. This result is likely due in no small part to Azerbaijan's concerted influence operations in the U.S. For years, the lobbyists on Azerbaijan's payroll have worked to keep U.S. military assistance flowing to the country and to tip the scales of U.S. support in their favor. While they may not have "won" this influence battle they have no doubt done enough to keep the U.S. on the sidelines of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Editor's Note: Artin Dersimonian was an intern at the Armenian Embassy in Washington in 2018. The Terjenian-Thomas Assembly Internship Program at the Armenian Assembly — which is mentioned in the QI brief on which this article is based — facilitated Dersimonian's internship with the embassy.

The events in Niger over the past few months have been alarming to watch. What began as a military coup now risks spiraling into a wider war in West Africa, with a group of juntas lining up to fight against a regional force threatening to invade and restore democratic rule in Niamey.The junta have explicitly justified their coup as a response to the "continuous deterioration of the security situation" plaguing Niger and complained that it and other countries in the Sahel "have been dealing for over 10 years with the negative socioeconomic, security, political and humanitarian consequences of NATO's hazardous adventure in Libya." Even ordinary Nigeriens backing the junta have done the same. The episode thus reminds us of an iron rule of foreign interference: Even military interventions considered successful at the time have unintended effects that cascade long after the missions formally end.The 2011 Libyan adventure saw the U.S., French and British governments launch an initially limited humanitarian intervention to protect civilians that quickly morphed into a regime change operation, unleashing a torrent of violence and extremism across the region.There was little dissent at the time. As Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's forces battled anti-government rebels, politicians, the press and anti-Gaddafi Libyans painted an overly simplistic picture of unarmed protesters and other civilians facing imminent if not already unfolding genocide. Only years later would a UK House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee report publicly determine, echoing the conclusions of other post-mortems, that charges of an impending civilian massacre were "not supported by the available evidence" and that "the threat to civilians was overstated and that the rebels included a significant Islamist element" that carried out numerous atrocities of its own.Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), and John Kerry (D-Mass.) all called for a no-fly zone. "I love the military ... but they always seem to find reasons why you can't do something rather than why you can," complained McCain. The American Enterprise Institute's Danielle Pletka said it would be "an important humanitarian step." The now-defunct Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI) think tank gathered a who's who of neoconservatives to repeatedly urge the same. In a letter to then-President Barack Obama, they quoted back Obama's Nobel Peace Prize speech in which he argued that "inaction tears at our conscience and can lead to more costly intervention later."Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, reportedly instrumental in persuading Obama to act, was herself swayed by similar arguments. Friend and unofficial adviser Sidney Blumenthal assured her that, once Gaddafi fell, "limited but targeted military support from the West combined with an identifiable rebellion" could become a new model for toppling Middle Eastern dictators. Pointing to the similar, deteriorating situation in Syria, Blumenthal claimed that "the most important event that could alter the Syrian equation would be the fall of Gaddafi, providing an example of a successful rebellion." (Despite Gaddafi's ouster, the Syrian civil war continues to this day, and its leader Bashar al-Assad is still in power).Likewise, columnist Anne-Marie Slaughter urged Clinton to think of Kosovo and Rwanda, where "even a small deployment could have stopped the killing," and insisted U.S. intervention would "change the image of the United States overnight." In one email, she dismissed counter-arguments:"People will say that we will then get enmeshed in a civil war, that we cannot go into another Muslim country, that Gaddafi is well armed, there will be a million reasons NOT to act. But all our talk about global responsibility and leadership, not to mention respect for universal values, is completely empty if we stand by and watch this happen with no response but sanctions."Despite grave and often-stated reservations, Obama and NATO got UN authorization for a no-fly zone. Clinton was privately showered with email congratulations, not just from Blumenthal and Slaughter ("bravo!"; "No-fly! Brava! You did it!"), but even from then-Bloomberg View Executive Editor James Rubin ("your efforts ... will be long remembered"). Pro-war voices like Pletka and Iraq War architect Paul Wolfowitz immediately began moving the goalposts by discussing Gaddafi's ouster, suggesting escalation to prevent a U.S. "defeat," and criticizing those saying Libya wasn't a vital U.S. interest.NATO's undefined war aims quickly shifted, and officials spoke out of both sides of their mouths. Some insisted the goal wasn't regime change, while others said Gaddafi "needs to go." It took less than three weeks for FPI Executive Director Jamie Fly, the organizer of the neocons' letter to Obama, to go from insisting it would be a "limited intervention" that wouldn't involve regime change, to professing "I don't see how we can get ourselves out of this without Gaddafi going."After only a month, Obama and NATO allies publicly pronounced they would stay the course until Gaddafi was gone, rejecting the negotiated exit put forward by the African Union. "There is no mission creep," NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen insisted two months later. Four months after that, Gaddafi was dead — captured, tortured and killed thanks in large part to a NATO airstrike on the convoy he was traveling in.The episode was considered a triumph. "We came, we saw, he died," Clinton joked to a reporter upon hearing the news. Analysts talked about the credit owed to Obama for the "success." "As Operation Unified Protector comes to a close, the alliance and its partners can look back at an extraordinary job, well done," wrote then-U.S. Permanent Representative to NATO Ivo Daalder and then-Supreme Allied Commander in Europe James Stavridis in October 2011. "Most of all, they can see in the gratitude of the Libyan people that the use of limited force — precisely applied — can affect real, positive political change." That same month, Clinton traveled to Tripoli and declared "Libya's victory" as she flashed a peace sign."It was the right thing to do," Obama told the UN, presenting the operation as a model that the United States was "proud to play a decisive role" in. Soon discussion moved to exporting this model elsewhere, like Syria. Hailing the UN for having "at last lived up to its duty to prevent mass atrocities," then-Human Rights Watch Executive Director Kenneth Roth called to "extend the human rights principles embraced for Libya to other people in need," citing other parts of the Middle East, the Ivory Coast, Myanmar and Sri Lanka.Others disagreed. "Libya has given [the mandate of 'responsibility to protect'] a bad name," complained Indian UN Ambassador Hardeep Singh Puri, echoing the sentiments of other diplomats angry that a UN mandate for protecting civilians had been stretched to regime change.It soon became clear why. Gaddafi's toppling not only led hundreds of Tuareg mercenaries under his employ to return to nearby Mali but also caused an exodus of weapons from the country, leading Tuareg separatists to team up with jihadist groups and launch an armed rebellion in the country. Soon, that violence triggered its own coup and a separate French military intervention in Mali, which quickly became a sprawling Sahel-wide mission that only ended nine years later with the situation, by some accounts, worse than it started. According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the majority of the more than 400,000 refugees in the Central Sahel were there because of the violence in Mali.Mali was far from alone. Thanks to its plentiful and unsecured weapons depots, Libya became what UK intelligence labeled the "Tesco" of illegal arms trafficking, referring to the British supermarket chain. Gaddafi's ouster "opened the floodgates for widespread extremist mayhem" across the Sahel region, retired Senior Foreign Service officer Mark Wentling wrote in 2020, with Libyan arms traced to criminals and terrorists in Niger, Tunisia, Syria, Algeria and Gaza, including not just firearms but also heavy weaponry like antiaircraft guns and surface-to-air missiles. By last year, extremism and violence was rife throughout the region, thousands of civilians had been killed and 2.5 million people had been displaced.Things are scarcely better in "liberated" Libya today. The resulting power vacuum produced exactly what Iraq War critics predicted: a protracted (and forever close-to-reigniting) civil war involving rival governments, neighboring states using them as proxies, hundreds of militias and violent jihadists. Those included the Islamic State, one of several extremist groups that made real Clinton's pre-intervention fear of Libya "becoming a giant Somalia." By the 2020 ceasefire, hundreds of civilians had been killed in Libya, nearly 900,000 needed humanitarian assistance, half of them women and children, and the country had become a lucrative hotspot for slave trading.Today, Libyans are unambiguously worse off than before NATO intervention. Ranked 53rd in the world and first in Africa by the 2010 UN Human Development Index, the country had dropped fifty places by 2019. Everything from GDP per capita and the number of fully functioning health care facilities to access to clean water and electricity sharply declined. Far from improving U.S. standing in the Middle East, most of the Arab world opposed the NATO operation by early 2012.Only five years later, Clinton, once eager to claim credit, distanced herself from the decision to intervene. "It didn't work," Obama admitted bluntly as he prepared to leave office, publicly deeming the country "a mess" and, privately, "a shit show." The New York Times collected the damning verdicts of those involved: "We made it worse"; "Gaddafi is laughing at all of us from his grave"; "by God, if we can't succeed here, it should really make one think about embarking on these kind of efforts."Libya offers numerous cautionary tales about well-meaning U.S. military interventions, from the way they rapidly escalate beyond their initial goals and limited nature, to their penchant for unforeseen knock-on effects that are hard to control and snowball disastrously. As Obama's "success" in the country now threatens to spark a regional war in Niger that could even drag the United States into the fighting, it should remind us that the consequences of military action and rejection of negotiated solutions last much longer than, and look very different years after, the initial period of triumphalism.

Since the hijacking of the Galaxy Leader cargo ship in the Red Sea last week, the Houthis reportedly fired ballistic missiles that landed within ten nautical miles of the USS Mason on Sunday. The missile launch followed the U.S. Navy destroyer's intervention in the attempted hijacking of another ship, a tanker named the Central Park, in the Gulf of Aden. The Houthis denied responsibility for this hijacking which appears to have been carried out by Somali pirates.The Houthis, who control most of northwest Yemen, also continue to launch cruise missiles and armed drones toward Israel.There are few good options when it comes to dealing with the Houthis. They are a formidable near-state organization that has evolved and been repeatedly tested during nearly two decades of war. From 2014, when they seized control of the Yemeni capital, Sana'a, the Houthis systematically vetted and incorporated many of Yemen's best engineers, technicians, and officers from the Yemeni military and intelligence services into its own organization. This incorporation, combined with assistance from Iran, has transformed the Houthis from a hardened guerrilla force into a militarily sophisticated group that is now, at least at a low level, an important regional actor.Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which launched an intervention in Yemen in 2015, are learning just how dogged and determined the Houthis are as an enemy. After repeated border incursions by the Houthis as well as missile and drone strikes on its territory, Saudi Arabia pivoted from war to negotiations. Rather than continue to pursue a policy modeled on a kinetic American approach, the Saudis returned to the careful and measured foreign policy that had served them well for decades. Since late 2022, the Saudis have been engaged in unilateral talks with the Houthis, part of a well-designed effort to de-escalate tensions and stabilize areas along the more than 800-mile-long Saudi-Yemeni border. These talks, which have been aided by China and Iran, were nearing a conclusion before the Houthis effectively declared war on Israel. Now, provocative actions by the Houthis are in danger of derailing those talks.The U.S. has indicated that the Biden Administration is considering re-designating the Houthis as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO). The Trump administration previously designated the Houthis as an FTO in January 2021, which the Biden administration subsequently revoked. While the designation is more justifiable now than when it was first imposed, it will have little or no impact on the Houthis or their leadership. Senior Houthi members do not leave Yemen and do not have foreign assets that would be subject to seizure. In fact, the designation will be celebrated in Sana'a as proof that the Houthis are "winning." However, the FTO designation will negatively impact the NGOs providing humanitarian assistance that must deal with the Houthis.Military strikes, which are undoubtedly at an advanced planning stage, are an equally poor option for dealing with the Houthis. The militant group has not only survived years of strikes carried out by Saudi Arabia and the UAE during their intervention in Yemen, but they thrived militarily and politically. The Saudi and Emirati-led airstrikes stoked public anger and acted as a glue that kept the broader Houthi organization together. During that time, the group refined its ability to hide weapons and facilities within northwest Yemen's maze of mountains and narrow valleys and within densely-populated urban areas. At the same time, they continued to launch cross-border attacks with men, drones, and missiles deep into Saudi territory.Much like the imposition of an FTO designation, attacks by the U.S .or Israel on targets in Yemen will be viewed as a victory by many within the Houthis' leadership. This is especially the case with the hardliners who are ascendant. Strikes are also likely to bolster support for the Houthis among Yemenis. Military strikes, which will likely be limited in nature, will do little to degrade the Houthis' ability to carry out strikes in the Red Sea or elsewhere.More worryingly, such U.S. or Israeli strikes, even if they are limited, are likely to set off an escalatory loop that could have regional and even global implications. The Houthis have the ability to impede shipping in the Red Sea, at least for short periods. They can also target vital energy-producing infrastructure in Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Such attacks, even if only modestly successful, can materially move global energy prices. It must also be noted that the Houthis still control the replacement tanker for the FSO Safer, which is anchored near the port of Hodeidah on the Red Sea. The UN successfully transferred over a million barrels of degraded crude from the rusting tanker to a new tanker, MOST Yemen, in August of this year. The Houthi leadership has an innate understanding of asymmetric warfare and, if cornered, they might well damage or blow up the tanker to cause havoc in the Red Sea.While the Houthis' missiles and drones have all been intercepted, the Houthis are viewed by many in Yemen and in the larger Muslim world, as "fighting back" against perceived Israeli aggression. The attacks, including the recent hijacking of the Galaxy Leader, which is partly owned by Israeli billionaire Abraham Ungar, have also demonstrated the group's military reach. Most importantly for the Houthis, the attacks on Israel-linked targets have, just as they were intended to, bolstered support for them among many Yemenis.Before the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war, the Houthis' were facing headwinds with respect to internal support. Unemployment, a profound lack of economic opportunity, rising food and energy prices, and the Houthis' brutal suppression of dissent were beginning to erode support for the group, especially among some key tribes. This is not to argue that the Houthis were in danger of losing control of northwest Yemen. They were not. But the fissures were growing. Now, even old enemies of the Houthis are signaling support for their attacks on Israel. Prominent members of Islah, Yemen's branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is aligned with Yemen's internationally recognized government, recently met with Houthi officials in Sana'a. This is noteworthy given that Islah has been engaged in deadly fighting with the Houthis since 2015. Attacks on the Houthis, even if justified, will only reinforce this trend and further bolster support for the group. But this support will be short-lived. Due to the Houthis' hijacking of the Galaxy Leader and their ongoing threats, insurance rates for ships transiting the Red Sea, and especially for any ships docking at the Houthi controlled port of Hodeidah, have soared. There are indications that some ships that were due to dock in Hodeidah have altered course as a result of Houthi actions. If there are further provocations, it is possible that the port, through which most of Yemen's food flows, will be closed to international shipping. This will put immense pressure on the Yemeni people who are already suffering from ever-increasing levels of food insecurity. There are no good options for dealing with the Houthis. But the simple fact is that they aren't going anywhere anytime soon, and they will not be defeated by military means alone.Saudi Arabia, which has recast itself as a valuable mediator in a number of conflicts, including Yemen, is best placed to try to moderate Houthi behavior through continued hard nosed negotiations. Saudi officials understand that there are moderates within the Houthi leadership who have more interest in business and development than in war. Even Houthi hardliners now have fortunes and legacies that they want to protect and pass on. There are also technocrats within the Houthi organization who understand that Houthi control of northwest Yemen cannot easily weather continued economic decline. Saudi officials are betting that an approach that fosters moderates through development and reconstruction efforts will be more successful over the medium and long-term than a return to war. The Houthis thrive on war, but peace is far more of a challenge for them. However, the Houthis' escalating provocations are all but guaranteeing a kinetic response from the U.S. and its allies. Such a response is justified, but it will be giving the Houthis, or at least the hardliners among them, exactly what they want, war. Dear RS readers! It has been an extraordinary year and our editing team has been working overtime to make sure that we are covering the current conflicts with quality, fresh analysis that doesn't cleave to the mainstream orthodoxy or take official Washington and the commentariat at face value. Our staff reporters, experts, and outside writers offer top-notch, independent work, daily. Please consider making a tax-exempt, year-end contribution to Responsible Statecraft so that we can continue this quality coverage — which you will find nowhere else — into 2024. Happy Holidays!

The United States is bombing Yemen, and according to the news coverage the reason is a string of recent attacks by Houthi militants on commercial ships in the Gulf of Aden. A New York Times headline from last week is typical: "After Red Sea Barrage by Houthis, U.S. and Allies Weigh Retaliation."This is technically true. Since November, the Houthis, who receive weapons and aid from Iran, have launched dozens of missiles at vessels in international shipping lanes, leading some ships to avoid the Red Sea entirely and sail all the way around Africa. But contra the headlines, the Houthis didn't suddenly become aggressive last year nor did American meddling in Yemen begin yesterday.The U.S. has been trying to dislodge the Houthis for almost a decade now. It's failed, and there's little reason to think the current effort will succeed either.American involvement in Yemen began in 2015 after the Houthis invaded and captured the Yemeni capital of Sanaa. In response, Yemen's neighbor Saudi Arabia assembled a coalition of Arab nations and began bombing Houthi targets, with the U.S. providing arms, logistical support, and other assistance like midair refueling for Saudi jets. It was seen as reluctant realpolitik on Washington's part: The Saudis felt cold-shouldered by the West's nuclear deal with their hated rival Iran, so the Obama administration reassured them by backing their war.From the beginning, Yemen's conflict was a strange fit for American involvement. At stake were largely local issues: The Houthis were Zaydi Muslims, an idiosyncratic sect of Shiite Islam, who had historically complained of discrimination. They were allied with a former president of Yemen who was trying to depose a then-current president of Yemen. There was also a sectarian overlay: The Houthis were Shias backed by Iran while the Saudis and its allies were Sunnis.You'd think Washington would have learned from the failure of the Iraq war to stay out of Islamic sectarian battles. If the United States had any interests in Yemen at all, it was in keeping a Sunni group and an enemy of the Houthis, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), at bay. Instead as the Saudis further destabilized Yemen, into the chaos stepped AQAP. They fanned out across the eastern part of the country, establishing a foothold as never before, with many analysts suggesting they were the most dangerous al-Qaeda franchise on Earth.Here was another lesson from Iraq: Instability is a terrorist's best friend. The Houthis in a sense were an echo of Iraq too. As Bruce Riedel has written, "The American invasion of Iraq in 2003 deeply radicalized the Houthi movement, like it did many other Arabs. …It was a turning point largely unrecognized outside Yemen, another unanticipated consequence of George Bush's Iraq adventures." Now, the American intervention in Yemen was yielding horrific civilian casualties and humanitarian strife, driving locals into the arms of both al-Qaeda and the Houthis, the very groups we were trying to stop.This is the Yemen into which America is hurling fresh ordnance today, one emaciated by war and bloodshed. It's the poorest country in the Middle East. The U.N. says it's home to the world's worst humanitarian crisis. The Houthis have survived the Saudi coalition and are increasingly confident they can outlast any challenger. The American-recognized Yemeni government is still banished from Sanaa and holed up in the country's south.Meanwhile the United States is once again finding that dislodging the Houthis is more complicated than it seems. Dropping bombs is easy; influencing events on the ground less so. So it was that, as the New York Times reports, while recent U.S. airstrikes in Yemen "damaged or destroyed about 90 percent of the targets struck, [Houthi forces] retained about three-quarters of its ability to fire missiles and drones at ships transiting the Red Sea." The Houthis have since vowed to retaliate against the U.S. while Sanaa recently hosted a large anti-American rally.It's a pattern that's played out time and again: The U.S. intervenes somewhere; this empowers our putative enemies who take advantage of the chaos and win hearts and minds; those enemies launch an attack; the U.S. uses the attack as a pretext for another military action; rinse and repeat sans any historical memory. Remember this the next time you hear that our hand was forced by the Houthis.