The US risks being drawn into a Middle East war it does not want to fight.
On 11 October, just four days after Hamas’s brutal attack on Israel, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken began a planned two-day trip to Israel and Jordan. However, his mission quickly expanded, as he made 11 stops across seven countries over the next six days, trying to address the escalating crisis in the Middle East. The results of this diplomatic effort were mixed, with many of his attempts at crisis management falling short.
In Saudi Arabia, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman delayed their meeting for hours, leaving Blinken waiting all night before finally summoning him the next morning. In Cairo, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi took advantage of Blinken’s comments in Tel Aviv, where he had said he was speaking “not only as the United States secretary of state but also as a Jew.” El-Sisi falsely claimed that Jews had never been persecuted in Egypt, further complicating the diplomatic situation. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, during a phone call, pressed Blinken on how he would respond to someone who claimed to be approaching the region as a Muslim, highlighting the region’s sensitivities. Meanwhile, Jordan’s King Abdullah firmly rejected the idea of accepting more Palestinian refugees, demonstrating the limits of American influence in the region.
These interactions underline the difficulty of re-engaging diplomatically in a region where American involvement has been inconsistent and fraught with complexity. Blinken’s attempts to navigate the delicate relationships in the Middle East have highlighted not only the limits of American diplomacy but also the deep-rooted challenges of managing a crisis in a region with its own political and historical intricacies.