‘American leadership is under question’ as MidEast conflict escalates

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00:00Biden is away from the White House this weekend in his home state of Delaware. He does have a

00:05virtual event coming up in about an hour where he'll be making some public remarks, so we'll

00:10wait to hear from him then. In the meantime, we do have a statement from the opposition party,

00:16the Republicans in the U.S., and their leadership in the House of Representatives under Speaker

00:22Mike Johnson. They're welcoming this development as a victory for peace and security. They say

00:30the world is better off without him, referring to Nasrallah, saying we call on the Biden-Harris

00:35administration to end its counterproductive calls for a ceasefire and its ongoing diplomatic

00:42pressure campaign against Israel. So we'll see if there's not a bipartisan response to this,

00:48and perhaps Republicans looking to put pressure on the White House. We did, of course,

00:53earlier this week hear Joe Biden and France leading calls for a 21-day temporary ceasefire

01:02in Lebanon. And really the official line from the White House has been,

01:06we do not want to see an all-out war. That is in nobody's interests. They believe Israel are

01:14open to that negotiation. They believe Israel are talking to them in good faith. But we'll have to

01:20see now whether this latest incident changes the calculation once again. Well, that ceasefire

01:29proposal has now fallen apart. The major escalation comes on the heels of a flurry of diplomatic

01:34efforts, doesn't it? So what does it mean for the U.S.? And what does it mean? Is there any

01:39room for diplomacy left still? That space seems to be shrinking. If you talk to White House

01:46officials, they certainly insist that diplomacy is the only way forward, and they still have

01:51faith in that. But I think taking a step back, there certainly is the perception among many

01:59within the U.S. and around the world that there's a bit of a vacuum right now. Joe Biden is 81,

02:07the oldest president in American history. There's been question marks over his mental acuity. I was

02:13at an event at the U.N. this week where we were in a hotel in New York, and he welcomed everyone

02:18to Washington. But I think even more importantly, he's effectively a lame duck president. The country

02:24is engaged in a presidential election, waiting to see who will succeed him. There's that sense of

02:31America being a little rudderless. And that's a moment when things can go wrong in the world.

02:37That vacuum can be filled by leaders pursuing their own goals amid the uncertainty of that election

02:46and whether Kamala Harris or indeed Donald Trump will take over. And to be frank, we've heard the

02:54Americans talk about diplomacy for the past year in Gaza and in Ukraine, and yet those conflicts

03:01have not come to an end. And certainly in the Middle East case, they've actually escalated. So

03:06this is a moment when American leadership and American potency is under question.

03:13You mentioned that statement coming out of the Republican Party. Have we

03:18seen any reactions from the presidential candidates on both the Republican and Democratic camps?

03:24Not as yet. And they, of course, are very busy on the campaign trail. They do tend to focus more on

03:31domestic issues. The calculation usually is that foreign policy does not decide elections. So I

03:39would not expect Donald Trump to use his next rally to certainly talk about this at the beginning.

03:46He had one in, had a couple in Michigan yesterday where he was very, very concerned about the

03:54election, very intensely focused still on border security and immigration. All of that said,

04:01it may well come up. I think Harris in particular will face questions from reporters if they get

04:08that opportunity. She may bring it up herself. She's been pretty close to Joe Biden on foreign

04:16policy so far. And I think just one other point worth mentioning is that we have heard in recent

04:21Iran, for whom this killing is another blow, really seeking to assassinate Donald Trump.

04:30And Trump has been talking about that, how consequential presidents become

04:34a target. So he may view it in that context and, again, repeat his claims that

04:41with Joe Biden as president, the world has descended into chaos.

04:45Now, is Washington's sway in the region then really,

04:49is it really waning? And is that the general sort of understanding in the political world there?

04:55I think that the evidence of the past year certainly suggests that there are limits to

05:02Washington's influence here. Going back to October the 7th, of course, Joe Biden was fiercely

05:10defensive of Israel and traveled there. Immediately, the logic seemed to be that

05:17if he hugged Israel closely, it would pay attention to his pleas. And then month after month,

05:25we've seen, I think, Joe Biden surprised by the nature of the Israeli government, perhaps more

05:31right wing than he remembered. And Benjamin Netanyahu has been

05:36bowing his own furrow. Opinion polls suggest at the moment Netanyahu's policies are actually

05:41quite popular. And the U.S. gives the impression of passivity and trying to lobby. And yet,

05:50at the same time, of course, it is still pumping money into Israel's military effort.

05:56Another several billion dollars just the other day. So on one level, its diplomatic efforts

06:02are not registering very deeply. But on another, it is actually still

06:08funding a lot of these Israeli military operations. David Smith, thank you.

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