Sen. Vance: Let Israel Manage Mideast Wars

Israel should be given power to conduct its own war, Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, said Sunday during an appearance on CNN's "State of the Union." Vance was disputing Biden administration policy on pausing weapons shipments to America's closest Mideast ally.

The United States has done a terrible job "micromanaging" the War on Terror in the Middle East; Israel can do it better, Vance told co-anchor Dana Bash.

During the interview, Bash said President Joe Biden is "frustrated after months of telling the Israeli prime minister to be more targeted."

"He doesn't think that [Israeli President Benjamin] Netanyahu is changing course," Bash continued. "And the president believes that too many civilians have been killed with U.S. weapons. Is that a fair concern?"

"First of all," Vance replied, the Biden administration's stance on the war in Gaza is "a fundamentally incoherent policy.

"On the one hand, they're saying too many Palestinian civilians have been killed. With the other hand, they're depriving the Israelis of the precision-guided weapons that actually cut down on civilian casualties.

"So if you're worried about Palestinian casualties, the stated policy here actually doesn't make a ton of sense. And I think the bigger problem here if we zoom out is — look, and I hate to say this, but — America is not good at micromanaging wars in the Middle East.

"Joe Biden has been president for four years, but he's really presided over, as a senator and a vice president, many of the biggest disasters we have had in foreign policy in the Middle East over the last 40 years. And I think that our attitude vis-a-vis these Israelis should be: Look, we're not good at micromanaging Middle Eastern wars; the Israelis are our allies; let them prosecute this war the way they see fit."

A Wednesday New York Times story on the "paused" shipment of bombs for Israel's invasion of Rafa — the southernmost city of the Gaza strip where nearly a million Palestinians have fled — highlighted a report from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where it mentioned that "there were so many arms shipments to Israel that a senior Pentagon official said the Department of Defense sometimes struggled to find sufficient cargo aircraft to deliver them."

According to the Times, the U.S. has been more than willing to send Israel both "guided" and "unguided" bombs alike. 

Last month, Biden signed an aid package providing Israel with roughly $15 billion in additional military aid.

"Israel," The Times added, "regularly receives arms from the Defense Department and from American weapons makers directly, which included the unguided and guided bombs that Israel has bought from the United States over the years and dropped on Gaza in recent months, and also fighter jets, air defense missiles and helicopters."

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