War in Gaza scrambles Biden foreign policy agenda  

Congressional lawmakers and foreign policy experts say the war in Gaza, which threatens to engulf the broader Middle East, has scrambled President Biden’s foreign policy agenda, forcing him to recalculate his administration’s approach to Iran, Saudi Arabia and the war in Ukraine.  

Senators and policy experts say Hamas’s attacks against Israeli citizens and the bombardment of Gaza by Israeli forces have inflamed tensions and will put pressure on Biden to take a harder line against Iran, scuttling any hope of reviving elements of the Iran nuclear deal in the foreseeable future. 

Asked Tuesday whether the Biden administration needed to make a course correction in its efforts to engage with Iran diplomatically through third parties, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said he always thought the Iran nuclear deal, which he voted against, was a mistake.

“My position on the JCPOA is clear. I voted against it early on because I think one of the main reasons is it didn’t have enough to deter Iran from funding terrorism around the globe, and I still believe that,” he said.

The Biden administration has worked through third-party intermediaries since 2021 to restore elements of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the formal name for the nuclear deal that was a signature achievement of the Obama administration.

Danielle Pletka, a distinguished senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute specializing in U.S. foreign and defense policy, said Hamas’s attacks are a “wake-up call” for Biden’s Iran policy.  

She said senior Biden officials are pursuing a rapprochement with Iran that’s “not based on any existing circumstances” indicating that Iran is ready to abandon its support of Hezbollah and Hamas.

“At least temporarily, there’s going to have to be a course correction. I think that the Congress is not going to let the Biden administration simply continue as if nothing’s happened,” she said.

That was apparent earlier this month, when the Biden administration agreed to refreeze $6 billion in Iranian assets held in Qatar that were set to be released as part of a prisoner exchange with Iran.

The White House changed course after coming under heavy pressure, including from Senate Democrats up for reelection such as Jon Tester (Mont.), Joe Manchin (W.Va.) and Sherrod Brown (Ohio).  

Lawmakers and experts also say that any attempt by the Biden administration to negotiate a security deal with Saudi Arabia will be put on hold indefinitely, even though senators who met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman says he’s still interested in pursuing the deal.  

Despite Crown Prince Mohammed’s expressed support for keeping security negotiations on track, senators and policy experts say that growing anger over the mounting civilian death toll in Gaza will limit his room to negotiate any deal that includes normalized relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel.  

“It’s obviously a second priority to managing this crisis [in Gaza] and holding Hamas accountable,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said of a potential U.S.-Saudi security deal.

Murphy, the chair of the Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Near East, South Asia, Central Asia and Counterterrorism, led a letter to Biden with 16 Senate colleagues this month raising support for U.S. involvement in normalizing relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia but also raising concerns about some of the Saudi requests of the U.S. government.  

The senators criticized Saudi Arabia’s human rights record and its “reckless and aggressive foreign policy agenda.”

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Ben Cardin (D-Md.), who met with Crown Prince Mohammed along with other senators over the weekend, said he was “extremely impressed” by the conversation but agreed that any prospective deal is on hold.  

“It is being kept active although it is secondary to the challenges in Israel with Hamas. Everybody’s concentrating on that so you’re not going to get a lot of attention by the Israelis or the Saudis on this normalization agreement,” he said. 

Cardin said the crown prince sees talks about normalized relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia in the “future” but he “can’t talk about it as much as he would like to today, because of the challenges of what’s happening in Gaza and Israel.” 

Paul Salem, the president and CEO of the Middle East Institute, said the footage of Palestinians digging through the rubble of Gaza “will inflame opinion in Arab capitals as well as Muslim capitals all the way to Indonesia, Malaysia, Turkey. And that will definitely be headache, a burden, a cost of sometime for the U.S.”

The said the “public pressure” will limit the capacity of governments to be as friendly or cooperative with the United States for a while.  

Jordan, a strong U.S. ally, canceled a summit it was supposed to host in Amman last week with Biden and Egyptian and Palestinian leaders. 

Salem said the crisis will require Biden to pay more attention to the Middle East after Washington over the past 18 months has focused more on the war in Ukraine and the threat posed by China.

Now, there’s growing pressure from conservatives in Congress for Biden to prioritize Israel over Ukraine.  

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) has called for redirecting Ukraine funding to Israel, warning that “Israel is facing an existential threat.”  

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and other Democrats say the need to fund Israeli and Ukrainian forces are equally urgent but acknowledged there’s a competition for resources, as conservatives in Congress press to shrink the size of $100 billion national security package requested by the president.  

“They both need the kind of aid that has been proposed,” Blumenthal said. “America can’t forget because the security threat is as real now, maybe even more so than before.  

“Putin is probably very happy that we’re asking the question of whether Ukraine should remain a priority. But we have to make clear that we’re going to continue to stay the course there,” he added.