The Biden administration's approach to the Middle East has further exposed the U.S. to attacks from Iran and terrorist groups, according to former government officials.
The U.S., which focused resources on perceived greater threats from Russia and China in recent years, pulled back intelligence and military resources from the Middle East.
The results of that strategy have been seen since Oct. 7, when Hamas terrorists invaded Israel. About 1,200 people were killed and roughly 240 people were taken hostage.
Immediately after the deadly attack, American officials struggled to determine if U.S. troops and diplomats abroad potentially were targets.
"[President Joe] Biden has spent much of the last three years … ignoring the Middle East completely," a former senior official who worked on Middle East matters during the Trump administration told Politico.
"I've spent a long time in the Middle East, and part of me wants to forget it, too. That's not the way it is. They ignored it. And now they are paying the price."
Insufficient intelligence in the region contributed to the U.S. failing to predict the rapid Taliban takeover of Afghanistan prior to the final withdrawal of American troops in 2021, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Now, two senior officials said the inability to learn about Hamas' plans partly resulted from relying more heavily on allies in the region for intelligence on terrorist organizations.
For example, Israel is better positioned to collect and analyze intelligence about activities in Gaza.
However, although Israeli officials obtained Hamas' battle plan for the Oct. 7 terrorist attack more than a year before it happened, Israeli military and intelligence officials dismissed the plan as aspirational and too difficult for Hamas to carry out, The New York Times reported.
But while some officials blamed Israel for the intelligence failure, others admit the U.S. was unprepared for the regional consequences of such an attack.
"Are we less well-equipped right now to think about how the other terrorist organizations with some form of regional or global footprint may operate in this environment?" a senior intelligence official said, Politico reported Tuesday. "The answer is yes."
A lack of resources and attention has plagued U.S. offices focusing on global counterterrorism.
Since the Obama administration, officials pushed the U.S. to focus more on China and Russia than the Middle East, Politico said.
"We started to really tune in to the sheer scale of [Chinese President] Xi Jinping's ambitions," a former senior official told Politico. "Not only were they regional, but they were really global. And it became harder and harder to ignore."
Two former officials told Politico that U.S. intelligence agencies have studied and analyzed Russian and Chinese attempts to expand their influence in Africa, sometimes through proxies.
"Their whole approach to the region, as their whole approach to foreign policy, is about one main thing: strategic competition with China," said Matt Duss, former senior national security adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Politico reported. "And to the extent they wanted to focus on the Middle East, it was that they didn't want to focus on it."
Charlie McCarthy ✉
Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.