Fortunately, the Democratic Socialists of American form only a sliver of Congress, and don’t control the executive branch—which will have to make some difficult decisions in the coming days. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan stated on Tuesday that an unknown number of U.S. citizens are among the roughly 150 people, many of them children, being held hostage by Hamas. (Ali Baraka, in the interview cited above, explains the rationale behind capturing Americans.) On Sunday, Gilad Erdan, the Israeli ambassador to the UN, said that the number might be in the dozens. Noah Rothman considers the implications:

What if negotiations with Hamas via proxies in Qatar come to nothing, or the price demanded of America and its allies sacrifices an unacceptable level of security for their respective citizens? Hamas has already threatened to reprise Islamic State’s tactics. . . . What if Hamas starts killing Americans?

The prospect is too terrible to imagine, but that is what the Biden White House is now confronting. How will the American public respond to such a grotesque display of barbarity? Will the voting public sit mournfully by as its citizens are slaughtered? Will they watch helplessly as their country is humiliated? Will they continue to see Israel’s war as Israel’s alone?

It is in the strategic interest of the United States to support Israel’s righteous war of self-defense against the Hamas regime in Gaza, but it is not in America’s immediate interest to become directly involved in that conflict. However, disengagement may quickly become politically untenable if Hamas makes good on its threats.

If Iran succeeds in obtaining nuclear weapons, the war in Gaza, let alone the protests on college campuses, will seem like a minor complication. Jonathan Schachter fears that this danger could be much more imminent than decisionmakers in Jerusalem and Washington believe. In his view, Israel seems to be repeating the mistake that allowed it to be taken by surprise on Simchat Torah of 2023 and Yom Kippur of 1973: putting too much faith in an intelligence concept that could be wrong.

Israel and the United States apparently believe that despite Iran’s well-documented progress in developing capabilities necessary for producing and delivering nuclear weapons, as well as its extensive and ongoing record of violating its international nuclear obligations, there is no acute crisis because building a bomb would take time, would be observable, and could be stopped by force. Taken together, these assumptions and their moderating impact on Israeli and American policy form a new Iran concept reminiscent of its 1973 namesake and of the systemic failures that preceded the October 7 massacre.

Meanwhile, most of the restrictions put in place by the 2015 nuclear deal will expire by the end of next year, rendering the question of Iran’s adherence moot. And the forces that could be taking action aren’t:

The European Union regularly issues boilerplate press releases asserting its members’ “grave concern.” American decisionmakers and spokespeople have created the unmistakable impression that their reservations about the use of force are stronger than their commitment to use force to prevent an Iranian atomic bomb. At the same time, the U.S. refuses to enforce its own sanctions comprehensively: Iranian oil exports (especially to China) and foreign-currency reserves have ballooned since January 2021, when the Biden administration took office.

Israel’s response has also been sluggish and ambiguous. Despite its oft-stated policy of never allowing a nuclear Iran, Israel’s words and deeds have sent mixed messages to allies and adversaries—perhaps inadvertently reinforcing the prevailing sense in Washington and elsewhere that Iran’s nuclear efforts do not present an exigent crisis.