Middle East flight plan

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: It’s Thursday, the 19th of October, 2023. Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Myrna Brown.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

First up: a trip to Tel Aviv. President Biden is in the Middle East today. His plan was to hold a summit with leaders from Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinians, but organizers canceled the event after Tuesday’s deadly explosion at a hospital in Gaza.

BROWN: President Biden’s trip is part of a larger war-time diplomacy plan, as the U.S. and Israel seek to confront terrorism.

Joining us now to talk about it is David Adesnik. He is a Senior Fellow and Director of Research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

REICHARD: David, good morning.

ADESNIK: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

REICHARD: David, President Biden met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday, and after their talks, he said this during a press conference:

BIDEN: We'll continue to work with you and partners across the region to prevent more tragedy to innocent civilians.

What can the U.S. do right away while waiting for the House to elect a Speaker and authorize funding?

ADESNIK: Well, one of the first things is what Biden is doing, which is demonstrating his solidarity by traveling to Israel. You know, there are some logistical complications for the Israelis that come with having such a high profile guest and can limit their military options while he's on the ground. But when you consider the fact that an integral part of the strategy for Hamas, for Iran, and for their partners is to drive a wedge between the United States and Israel to find a way to persuade the United States that it needs to back away that it needs to tell Israel to do less in fighting terrorism, Biden is going there and showing there is no daylight, that he's meeting with Netanyahu, that he is going to give Israel all the support it needs. So that alone is one of the very important things. Now beyond that, when you get into the nitty gritty of aid, a lot of things do need to be approved by Congress. But it's also possible that we can make some rapid transfers of certain items that will help the Israelis fight.

BROWN: David, The US government has also been working to get Americans out of Israel.

National Security Council John Kirby announced last week:

KIRBY: That the first charter flight that the State Department is organizing has departed from Israel and is en route right now into Europe.

BROWN: But Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said a flight to Europe wasn’t good enough, and he’s taken action to do more.

DESANTIS: We are having our first flight of people being rescued from Israel. It is landed. Over 260 people that wanted to get back to the United States and couldn't do it. There was a devoid of leadership so we stepped up and led.

BROWN: Is DeSantis right that the U.S. State Department is failing to bring Americans all the way home?

ADESNIK: Well, I mean, it's also asking them to pay a bit for the travel, although I imagine the government has to be efficient to some extent. And, you know, DeSantis is leaning forward to show that he as a potential leader can do more, I'm sure in part, the challenges of running for president have made him want to show more than ever that he can do things that others wouldn't do. And it's unusual for a governor to step into foreign policy like this. And he actually partnered with a non governmental organization that specializes in getting Americans out of harm's way, in difficult places overseas. They worked in Afghanistan, they  worked in Ukraine. So I don't think the states were on was abandoning the Americans. But you know, time is of the essence, I think people who may have been desperate to get home deserve the chance to get home as quickly as possible.

REICHARD: Shifting now to foreign policy. It’s evident that Iran helped fund and likely even plan the attack by Hamas on October 7th. If confirmed as true, will it change the Biden Administration’s policy goals? I mean, Biden’s been trying to return the U.S. to the 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal, a move Israel does not want us to make.

ADESNIK: Well, I can tell you, it absolutely should change the way the United States is thinking about the Iran Nuclear Deal. So what the White House has said, even while denying an Iranian role in planning the specific assault on October 7, says absolutely, the United States confirms, as everyone has widely known, Iran is a top funder of Hamas, it trains, it shares technology with them, it gives them weapons. So if you are giving 10s of millions of dollars every year to a terrorist organization, even if you didn't pull the trigger, or give a specific green light on the day that they murdered 1,400 people, you are fully responsible. And despite this being knowledge the government has the public has leading up before October 7, the Biden administration still wanted to move forward believing that Iran was a viable partner.

If anything, this horrific attack should reinforce that it never was and it never can be, never should be again. We cannot afford to give billions, right? The Biden policy of negotiating with Iran in an effort to get to the nuclear deal pays Iran just to negotiate with us not even to make concessions, right? The Biden administration says sanctions are still on; its officials have acknowledged to journalists they've eased up on oil sanctions. And as a result of easing up on enforcing the law, Iran has netted somewhere between 26 and 29 billion additional dollars, according to my colleagues' calculations. Obviously, we paid 6 billion for hostages to come home, and the money hasn't been disbursed yet. So the idea that Iran is a potential partner that we can trust, I think, you know, has to go out the window. It should have been out the window before we saw the way they cheated on the nuclear deal. That was one of the big imports when Israel found the secret warehouse in Tehran where Iran was keeping its nuclear files. You know, the Biden administration was not listening to all the reasons to do a 180 but hopefully it's finally received one that it's willing to accept.

BROWN: Are there any countries not directly involved in the war just yet that we should pay attention to in the coming days?

ADESNIK: Absolutely. I'll flag three of them. One is Lebanon. That is where Hezbollah, one of Iran's most potent terror proxies, is just on Israel's northern border. One of the biggest questions is are they going to come into this war? They had a brief war with Israel in 2006. They had been rearming aggressively with Iran has helped the entire time since including more advanced precision weapons that could target either civilians or Israeli power plants, airports, seaports; it could become a very difficult two front fight for Israel if Hezbollah enters. The other two countries we need to flag are Qatar and Turkey. Those are the countries that, despite nominally being US allies, are friends of Hamas. They have a foot on each side and the U.S. needs to really step up the pressure. Hamas leaders have continually found refuge in both of those countries. They appear to have funding mechanisms in both of those countries, even though Turkey is a member of NATO and Joe Biden himself ensured the elevation of Qatar to the status of what we call a major non-NATO ally. So both of them are trying to sort of split the difference, say of course they are not happy with it with war and conflict. But the bottom line is unless they stop harboring Hamas and allowing funding of Hamas, serious action needs to be taken.

REICHARD: David Adesnik [uh-DEZZ-nick] is with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. David, thank you so much.

ADESNIK: My pleasure.

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