‘It Became Our Foreign Policy Priority, Liked or Not’
Every administration must adapt to respond to global events, but the Israel-Hamas conflict has notably interfered with Biden's other foreign policy initiatives.
TroibNews 
President Joe Biden was questioned a week after the devastating Oct. 7 attacks on Israel about the United States' capacity to manage both the war in Ukraine and the escalating crisis in the Middle East. “We're the United States of America for God's sake,” he told CBS News. “We can take care of both of these and still maintain our overall international defense.”
However, some administration officials indicate that the White House has made difficult decisions to redirect attention and resources from other foreign policy priorities in order to focus on the Israel-Hamas conflict. Biden’s strong backing for Israel has complicated U.S. efforts to cultivate relationships in various regions around the globe.
“More than any other crisis, it exposed the limits of U.S. power,” noted Comfort Ero, president and CEO of the International Crisis Group think tank.
As one senior administration official stated regarding the Israel-Hamas situation: “It became our foreign policy priority whether we liked it or not.”
After withdrawing from Afghanistan, Biden was expected to be the first president to finally conclude the lengthy war on terror. Yet the U.S. finds itself re-engaged in the Middle East, struggling to manage Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s military actions in Gaza and Lebanon while trying to avert a broader regional conflict.
“Oct. 7 changed everything,” remarked another senior administration official. “Of course we were going to support Israel, that’s not a question. This president believes in that strongly. But then the goalposts kept moving, Bibi kept walking away from a cease-fire deal. And we were put in an impossible position that distracted from everything else.”
In several instances, U.S. focus and resources have shifted away from the administration’s strategic interests in the Indo-Pacific, Europe, and Africa due to the demands of the Middle East crisis. Additionally, the U.S. approach to Israel has negatively impacted its reputation in regions where it is attempting to draw nations away from adversaries like Russia and China.
This perspective is supported by more than a dozen U.S. officials, foreign diplomats, lawmakers, and analysts who were interviewed, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to express their views openly.
“Our response to Ukraine helped truly restore our global credibility after Trump,” remarked a senior administration official. “And I still think we come out ahead, even after what’s happened in Gaza. But it’s undeniably perceived as a more muddled picture now.”
The official attributed part of this impression to anger in several regions over the Biden administration’s backing of Israel’s military actions, which have resulted in rising civilian casualties. “The president has managed it as well as anyone could — he both supported and restrained Israel as well as anyone could have. But he paid the price on the world stage and politically here at home.”
Every administration faces the need to respond to new global tensions. Various branches of the administration routinely work on multiple crises simultaneously.
The Biden administration argues that it is successfully navigating these challenges and achieving significant outcomes.
“I can’t think of a single policy priority of ours that we haven’t been able to achieve or that has been made more difficult to achieve because of our focus on the Middle East or the support we have provided to Israel,” stated Sean Savett, spokesperson for the White House National Security Council. He cited Biden’s involvement in the Quad partnership with Japan, Australia, and India, as well as efforts to reinforce NATO and mobilize humanitarian and diplomatic resources for the conflict in Sudan.
Biden is also planning his first visit to Africa later this month to engage with Angola and a trip to Germany to garner more support for Ukraine, all while addressing the latest developments in Lebanon.
In some scenarios, the Biden administration may be making progress internationally that isn’t receiving sufficient coverage due to the dominant focus on the Israel-Hamas situation.
However, the Israel-Gaza crisis remains one of the most complex diplomatic issues on the global stage, coupled with a severe humanitarian disaster. Any administration would find it challenging to navigate these waters without encountering significant trade-offs. Issues that are currently sidelined could become urgent crises requiring immediate attention in the future.
Here are some of the foreign policy priorities of the Biden administration that have been disrupted by the ongoing Middle East crisis:
**The Pivot to Asia Faces Delays**
The Biden administration has had to reroute crucial military resources, including aircraft carrier strike groups, from the Indo-Pacific to the Middle East. This redirection occurs at a time when nervous allies like Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines are seeking to augment U.S. military presence in their regions as a counter signal to China.
“The pivot to Asia has been delayed again, again,” commented one administration official.
Support for Israel has also adversely affected the U.S. standing in the region, particularly in its competition with China for influence over Muslim-majority nations such as Malaysia and Indonesia. Recent polls in these countries revealed a drop in support for aligning with the U.S. instead of China, from 61 percent last year to below 50 percent this year.
“It is surely no coincidence,” said Michael Singh, managing director at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He expressed hope that these trends may reverse once stability returns to the Middle East, though he noted, “Unfortunately, the dust shows no sign of settling — quite the opposite.”
It is important to mention that previous administrations, both Democratic and Republican, have similarly struggled to execute the promised pivot to Asia. Additionally, the Biden administration has received praise for its efforts to ease tensions with China and enhance exchanges of high-ranking officials.
Nonetheless, demonstrations of military strength have grown increasingly vital as China escalates its aggressive maneuvers toward Taiwan and disputed territories in the South China Sea near the Philippines, a crucial U.S. ally.
**Attention Diverted from Ukraine**
Three senior defense and security officials from Eastern Europe have indicated that the Middle East crisis has drawn Western focus away from the war in Ukraine, where Russia continues to make incremental gains despite suffering heavy losses in eastern Ukraine.
“We realize the U.S. can’t do everything everywhere all at once, and the Middle East certainly takes attention from Ukraine,” stated one of the officials. Concerns have surfaced that Ukraine’s own peace initiatives may be overshadowed by diplomatic maneuvers related to the Middle East crisis. Data also shows a decrease in Biden's verbal commitments to the Ukraine conflict following the Israel-Hamas war onset.
The administration regularly emphasizes that it continues to deliver billions of dollars in military assistance to Ukraine even while managing conflicts elsewhere, reiterating its dedication to aiding Kyiv against Russian aggression. Additionally, the Biden administration has linked Ukraine aid to support for Israel.
Debates have emerged regarding whether the U.S. is overstretched, given that it must provide arms to Israel, Ukraine, and allies in Asia, even as its defense industrial base is strained. The U.S. has already reduced its surplus military stocks by supplying Ukraine in its conflict with Russia. Meanwhile, ongoing military assistance to Israel is further stretching these dwindling supplies, especially as the U.S. Navy depletes valuable stocks of air defense missiles used against Iranian-backed militants in Yemen.
Russia has adeptly used the Gaza crisis to undermine Western messaging regarding its war in Ukraine, presenting it as evidence of Western hypocrisy.
“These messages [that] Russian propaganda is blaring out — that the U.S. hypocritically pretends to care about European lives but not lives in the Middle East — it’s not true but it’s clearly resonating a lot in the Global South,” remarked a third administration official.
During the 2023 BRICS summit, Russia condemned the Gaza conflict as a failure of U.S. Middle East policy, a move perceived as beneficial to its efforts to gain favor in countries beyond the West.
**Strained Efforts in the Middle East**
The attacks on Oct. 7 may have completely derailed U.S. initiatives aimed at normalizing relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel, a pursuit that has occupied U.S. diplomacy for nearly two years in hopes of fostering long-term stability in the region.
U.S. officials and regional analysts acknowledge that advancing a Saudi-Israel normalization deal is exceedingly complex for Riyadh without substantial commitments to establish Palestinian statehood, a condition that Israel’s government has firmly rejected.
Despite the obstacles, senior White House officials assert that they are still striving for diplomatic breakthroughs concerning a Saudi-Israel deal alongside efforts to negotiate a cease-fire in Gaza and mitigate tensions in Lebanon.
Furthermore, Biden pledged early in his administration to work toward an end to the war in Yemen, appointing a senior envoy, Tim Lenderking, during his first month. However, a lasting peace in Yemen now appears more elusive than ever.
While active fighting between the established government and Iranian-backed Houthi militants has diminished, the conflict has escalated in a new dimension. Houthis have launched missiles at Israel and U.S. naval vessels in the Red Sea in reaction to Israel’s actions in Gaza.
**Neglected Crises in Africa**
Sudan's civil war has garnered the classification of the world’s gravest humanitarian crisis, pushing around 25 million people to the brink of famine, yet U.S. officials specializing in African policy express frustration about the limited attention the conflict has received from the Biden administration compared to the Middle East situation.
The United Arab Emirates is reported to be supplying arms to the Rapid Support Forces, one of the warring factions, which faces accusations of genocide and ethnic cleansing. Some analysts suggest that the Biden administration is minimizing the UAE’s role in Sudan to secure its cooperation in addressing the Middle East crisis.
Administration officials reject these allegations and maintain that they prioritize these discussions with the UAE.
Biden recently hosted the UAE leader in Washington, emphasizing the countries’ “strategic partnership.”
“You can’t say you want to end the war in Sudan and praise the UAE as a constructive partner,” said Cameron Hudson, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies Africa program. “By saying that, Biden has advanced his Middle East policy objectives with the UAE entirely at the expense of his credibility in Africa.”
Other underreported conflict areas include Somalia and eastern Congo. While U.S. Director for National Intelligence Avril Haines visited Congo in 2023 and Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled there the previous year, Blinken has made nearly a dozen trips to the Middle East within the past year.
“The lack of commitment to addressing even a fraction of Africa’s crises with the same urgency as the fallout from Oct. 7 is something African governments raise in discussions with U.S. lawmakers,” noted one congressional aide involved in foreign affairs.
**Human Rights Under Scrutiny**
Several administration officials have indicated that the Middle East crisis has jeopardized Biden’s long-standing goal to restore U.S. credibility on human rights.
Human rights organizations have persistently criticized Biden for failing to hold Israel accountable to the same standards of international humanitarian law that other nations face, particularly with regard to the use of U.S.-manufactured weapons.
“We’re hearing from human rights defenders all over the map that they want nothing to do with the United States anymore, that they don’t believe the U.S. is a good actor in the world,” stated Sarah Yager, Washington director at Human Rights Watch, referencing discussions with activists in Jordan and Yemen. “That’s how far the U.S. reputation has sunk because of the president’s handling of Gaza and now Lebanon.”
Egypt serves as another stark illustration. While Cairo is playing a pivotal role in U.S.-led efforts to negotiate a cease-fire and secure a hostage agreement in Gaza, human rights organizations accuse Biden of easing pressure on Egypt regarding its own poor human rights record in exchange for cooperation. The previous administration withheld hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to Egypt due to its crackdown on dissent and the media, as well as its treatment of political prisoners, claims that the Egyptian government has continuously dismissed.
This year, the Biden administration reversed course and approved all $1.3 billion in U.S. military aid to Egypt, asserting that the funding decision “is important to advancing regional peace and Egypt’s specific and ongoing contributions to U.S. national security priorities.”
White House officials have stated that the administration continues to address human rights issues in discussions with foreign counterparts globally. However, behind closed doors, some officials acknowledge the damage has been done.
“We made a lot of strides on human rights messaging up until last year,” shared one administration official. “Now, the world just doesn’t trust us on this anymore.”
Phelim Kine contributed to this report.
Thomas Evans for TROIB News
However, some administration officials indicate that the White House has made difficult decisions to redirect attention and resources from other foreign policy priorities in order to focus on the Israel-Hamas conflict. Biden’s strong backing for Israel has complicated U.S. efforts to cultivate relationships in various regions around the globe.
“More than any other crisis, it exposed the limits of U.S. power,” noted Comfort Ero, president and CEO of the International Crisis Group think tank.
As one senior administration official stated regarding the Israel-Hamas situation: “It became our foreign policy priority whether we liked it or not.”
After withdrawing from Afghanistan, Biden was expected to be the first president to finally conclude the lengthy war on terror. Yet the U.S. finds itself re-engaged in the Middle East, struggling to manage Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s military actions in Gaza and Lebanon while trying to avert a broader regional conflict.
“Oct. 7 changed everything,” remarked another senior administration official. “Of course we were going to support Israel, that’s not a question. This president believes in that strongly. But then the goalposts kept moving, Bibi kept walking away from a cease-fire deal. And we were put in an impossible position that distracted from everything else.”
In several instances, U.S. focus and resources have shifted away from the administration’s strategic interests in the Indo-Pacific, Europe, and Africa due to the demands of the Middle East crisis. Additionally, the U.S. approach to Israel has negatively impacted its reputation in regions where it is attempting to draw nations away from adversaries like Russia and China.
This perspective is supported by more than a dozen U.S. officials, foreign diplomats, lawmakers, and analysts who were interviewed, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to express their views openly.
“Our response to Ukraine helped truly restore our global credibility after Trump,” remarked a senior administration official. “And I still think we come out ahead, even after what’s happened in Gaza. But it’s undeniably perceived as a more muddled picture now.”
The official attributed part of this impression to anger in several regions over the Biden administration’s backing of Israel’s military actions, which have resulted in rising civilian casualties. “The president has managed it as well as anyone could — he both supported and restrained Israel as well as anyone could have. But he paid the price on the world stage and politically here at home.”
Every administration faces the need to respond to new global tensions. Various branches of the administration routinely work on multiple crises simultaneously.
The Biden administration argues that it is successfully navigating these challenges and achieving significant outcomes.
“I can’t think of a single policy priority of ours that we haven’t been able to achieve or that has been made more difficult to achieve because of our focus on the Middle East or the support we have provided to Israel,” stated Sean Savett, spokesperson for the White House National Security Council. He cited Biden’s involvement in the Quad partnership with Japan, Australia, and India, as well as efforts to reinforce NATO and mobilize humanitarian and diplomatic resources for the conflict in Sudan.
Biden is also planning his first visit to Africa later this month to engage with Angola and a trip to Germany to garner more support for Ukraine, all while addressing the latest developments in Lebanon.
In some scenarios, the Biden administration may be making progress internationally that isn’t receiving sufficient coverage due to the dominant focus on the Israel-Hamas situation.
However, the Israel-Gaza crisis remains one of the most complex diplomatic issues on the global stage, coupled with a severe humanitarian disaster. Any administration would find it challenging to navigate these waters without encountering significant trade-offs. Issues that are currently sidelined could become urgent crises requiring immediate attention in the future.
Here are some of the foreign policy priorities of the Biden administration that have been disrupted by the ongoing Middle East crisis:
**The Pivot to Asia Faces Delays**
The Biden administration has had to reroute crucial military resources, including aircraft carrier strike groups, from the Indo-Pacific to the Middle East. This redirection occurs at a time when nervous allies like Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines are seeking to augment U.S. military presence in their regions as a counter signal to China.
“The pivot to Asia has been delayed again, again,” commented one administration official.
Support for Israel has also adversely affected the U.S. standing in the region, particularly in its competition with China for influence over Muslim-majority nations such as Malaysia and Indonesia. Recent polls in these countries revealed a drop in support for aligning with the U.S. instead of China, from 61 percent last year to below 50 percent this year.
“It is surely no coincidence,” said Michael Singh, managing director at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He expressed hope that these trends may reverse once stability returns to the Middle East, though he noted, “Unfortunately, the dust shows no sign of settling — quite the opposite.”
It is important to mention that previous administrations, both Democratic and Republican, have similarly struggled to execute the promised pivot to Asia. Additionally, the Biden administration has received praise for its efforts to ease tensions with China and enhance exchanges of high-ranking officials.
Nonetheless, demonstrations of military strength have grown increasingly vital as China escalates its aggressive maneuvers toward Taiwan and disputed territories in the South China Sea near the Philippines, a crucial U.S. ally.
**Attention Diverted from Ukraine**
Three senior defense and security officials from Eastern Europe have indicated that the Middle East crisis has drawn Western focus away from the war in Ukraine, where Russia continues to make incremental gains despite suffering heavy losses in eastern Ukraine.
“We realize the U.S. can’t do everything everywhere all at once, and the Middle East certainly takes attention from Ukraine,” stated one of the officials. Concerns have surfaced that Ukraine’s own peace initiatives may be overshadowed by diplomatic maneuvers related to the Middle East crisis. Data also shows a decrease in Biden's verbal commitments to the Ukraine conflict following the Israel-Hamas war onset.
The administration regularly emphasizes that it continues to deliver billions of dollars in military assistance to Ukraine even while managing conflicts elsewhere, reiterating its dedication to aiding Kyiv against Russian aggression. Additionally, the Biden administration has linked Ukraine aid to support for Israel.
Debates have emerged regarding whether the U.S. is overstretched, given that it must provide arms to Israel, Ukraine, and allies in Asia, even as its defense industrial base is strained. The U.S. has already reduced its surplus military stocks by supplying Ukraine in its conflict with Russia. Meanwhile, ongoing military assistance to Israel is further stretching these dwindling supplies, especially as the U.S. Navy depletes valuable stocks of air defense missiles used against Iranian-backed militants in Yemen.
Russia has adeptly used the Gaza crisis to undermine Western messaging regarding its war in Ukraine, presenting it as evidence of Western hypocrisy.
“These messages [that] Russian propaganda is blaring out — that the U.S. hypocritically pretends to care about European lives but not lives in the Middle East — it’s not true but it’s clearly resonating a lot in the Global South,” remarked a third administration official.
During the 2023 BRICS summit, Russia condemned the Gaza conflict as a failure of U.S. Middle East policy, a move perceived as beneficial to its efforts to gain favor in countries beyond the West.
**Strained Efforts in the Middle East**
The attacks on Oct. 7 may have completely derailed U.S. initiatives aimed at normalizing relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel, a pursuit that has occupied U.S. diplomacy for nearly two years in hopes of fostering long-term stability in the region.
U.S. officials and regional analysts acknowledge that advancing a Saudi-Israel normalization deal is exceedingly complex for Riyadh without substantial commitments to establish Palestinian statehood, a condition that Israel’s government has firmly rejected.
Despite the obstacles, senior White House officials assert that they are still striving for diplomatic breakthroughs concerning a Saudi-Israel deal alongside efforts to negotiate a cease-fire in Gaza and mitigate tensions in Lebanon.
Furthermore, Biden pledged early in his administration to work toward an end to the war in Yemen, appointing a senior envoy, Tim Lenderking, during his first month. However, a lasting peace in Yemen now appears more elusive than ever.
While active fighting between the established government and Iranian-backed Houthi militants has diminished, the conflict has escalated in a new dimension. Houthis have launched missiles at Israel and U.S. naval vessels in the Red Sea in reaction to Israel’s actions in Gaza.
**Neglected Crises in Africa**
Sudan's civil war has garnered the classification of the world’s gravest humanitarian crisis, pushing around 25 million people to the brink of famine, yet U.S. officials specializing in African policy express frustration about the limited attention the conflict has received from the Biden administration compared to the Middle East situation.
The United Arab Emirates is reported to be supplying arms to the Rapid Support Forces, one of the warring factions, which faces accusations of genocide and ethnic cleansing. Some analysts suggest that the Biden administration is minimizing the UAE’s role in Sudan to secure its cooperation in addressing the Middle East crisis.
Administration officials reject these allegations and maintain that they prioritize these discussions with the UAE.
Biden recently hosted the UAE leader in Washington, emphasizing the countries’ “strategic partnership.”
“You can’t say you want to end the war in Sudan and praise the UAE as a constructive partner,” said Cameron Hudson, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies Africa program. “By saying that, Biden has advanced his Middle East policy objectives with the UAE entirely at the expense of his credibility in Africa.”
Other underreported conflict areas include Somalia and eastern Congo. While U.S. Director for National Intelligence Avril Haines visited Congo in 2023 and Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled there the previous year, Blinken has made nearly a dozen trips to the Middle East within the past year.
“The lack of commitment to addressing even a fraction of Africa’s crises with the same urgency as the fallout from Oct. 7 is something African governments raise in discussions with U.S. lawmakers,” noted one congressional aide involved in foreign affairs.
**Human Rights Under Scrutiny**
Several administration officials have indicated that the Middle East crisis has jeopardized Biden’s long-standing goal to restore U.S. credibility on human rights.
Human rights organizations have persistently criticized Biden for failing to hold Israel accountable to the same standards of international humanitarian law that other nations face, particularly with regard to the use of U.S.-manufactured weapons.
“We’re hearing from human rights defenders all over the map that they want nothing to do with the United States anymore, that they don’t believe the U.S. is a good actor in the world,” stated Sarah Yager, Washington director at Human Rights Watch, referencing discussions with activists in Jordan and Yemen. “That’s how far the U.S. reputation has sunk because of the president’s handling of Gaza and now Lebanon.”
Egypt serves as another stark illustration. While Cairo is playing a pivotal role in U.S.-led efforts to negotiate a cease-fire and secure a hostage agreement in Gaza, human rights organizations accuse Biden of easing pressure on Egypt regarding its own poor human rights record in exchange for cooperation. The previous administration withheld hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to Egypt due to its crackdown on dissent and the media, as well as its treatment of political prisoners, claims that the Egyptian government has continuously dismissed.
This year, the Biden administration reversed course and approved all $1.3 billion in U.S. military aid to Egypt, asserting that the funding decision “is important to advancing regional peace and Egypt’s specific and ongoing contributions to U.S. national security priorities.”
White House officials have stated that the administration continues to address human rights issues in discussions with foreign counterparts globally. However, behind closed doors, some officials acknowledge the damage has been done.
“We made a lot of strides on human rights messaging up until last year,” shared one administration official. “Now, the world just doesn’t trust us on this anymore.”
Phelim Kine contributed to this report.
Thomas Evans for TROIB News
