US officials expect Israel’s counterattack on Iran will come before US Election Day

Washington (CNN) — American officials expect Israel will retaliate against Iran for its attack earlier this month before November 5, sources tell CNN, a timeline that would thrust the growing volatility in the Middle East squarely into public view within days of the American presidential election.

The timeline and parameters of Israel’s retaliation against Iran have been subject to intense debate inside Israel’s government and are not directly related to the timing of the US election, the sources said.

Still, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — described by senior US administration officials as a political animal deeply attuned to American politics — appears highly sensitive to any potential political ramifications of Israel’s actions in the US, they said.

The growing conflict in the Middle East has emerged as a persistent issue in the American election. President Joe Biden, and by extension Vice President Kamala Harris, have faced pressure from progressives for their handling of the situation. Meanwhile, Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, have accused the administration of bungling the crisis, sending the world into chaos.

As the election nears, the administration has begun applying new pressure on Israel to improve humanitarian conditions inside Gaza. In a stern letter revealed this week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned Israel a failure to deliver more aid to the enclave could trigger a cutoff of military assistance.

But in a sign of the fraught political dynamics, the letter was not signed from the president or the vice president, neither of whom has publicly threatened to cut off aid to Israel, despite pressure from the left. Its deadline for allowing more humanitarian aid into Gaza falls after the election. And the warning came the same week an advanced US air defense system arrived in Israel to held defend the country against Iranian attacks.

How the conflict unfolds in the three weeks before Election Day remains one of the biggest uncertainties for the two presidential campaigns. While not a top-tier issue for many voters, the crisis has complicated Harris’ efforts to win Michigan, a state with a major concentration of Arab-American voters. She is campaigning in the state three days this week.

Strike could upend race

For Biden and Harris, an outbreak of a wider regional conflict would pose an unwelcome development on an issue that has already caused them major political headaches.

Netanyahu is acutely aware of how a potential counterstrike could reshape the presidential race, according to assessments from some US officials, adding a layer of complexity to the ongoing diplomacy between the two nations over the last several months.

Biden, in the wake of Iran’s missile attack earlier this month, did not try to dissuade Netanyahu from responding forcefully. But mindful of the prospects of all-out war or spiking oil prices on the presidential race, he and his team have worked to encourage a measured reprisal.

Biden administration officials have been notably tight-lipped about both the timing and targets of Israel’s forthcoming counterstrike after Iran launched some 200 ballistic missiles at the Jewish state earlier this month.

Netanyahu informed Biden last week that Israel does not intend to go after Iran’s nuclear or oil sites during this round of retaliation, CNN previously reported, a message that was received with relief inside the White House. Biden had publicly encouraged Israel to avoid those targets.

In a statement, Netanyahu’s office said, “We listen to the opinions of the United States, but we will make our final decisions based on our national interests,” an indication that despite whatever assurances he offered Biden, the scope of Israel’s response could be different than what the White House has encouraged.

It is not known whether Israel’s attacks on Iran would be limited to physical targeting of military assets or also include a cyber warfare component. US officials will be closely monitoring not only its ally’s counterattack but the response it will elicit from Iran, as the Biden administration hopes to avoid another full-fledged war from breaking out in the Middle East.

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, White House spokesman John Kirby said “there’s little doubt that the Iranians know how seriously” the US takes its commitment to Israel’s right to self-defense.

“But I don’t think it’d be useful for me, one way or another, to get into the specifics of the diplomacy,” Kirby said, as he declined to comment on ways in which US officials may have been working to try to shape Israel’s eventual response to Iran.

Biden has urged measured response

Yet in many ways, those efforts have played out publicly. Biden, speaking to reporters on several occasions earlier this month, urged a measured response, and suggested he was conveying those views to Israel directly.

In a telephone conversation last week, Biden and Netanyahu held a “direct” conversation about the plans for responding to Iran, according to the White House. Harris also joined the classified call, describing it later as an “important” discussion.

American officials were extraordinarily tight-tipped about the two leaders’ conversation. Previous calls between the men have grown tense as Biden confronted what he regarded as a lack of cooperation from Netanyahu on securing an end to the war.

Biden has grown frustrated that Netanyahu appears to brush off his advice and recommendations, and to publicly reject his attempts at lowering regional temperatures. Some American officials have privately speculated the Israeli leader is looking to boost Trump in the weeks ahead of November’s election.

Yet until this week, Biden had stopped well short of threatening to condition American assistance to Israel on efforts to improve humanitarian conditions.

In their letter, sent Sunday, Blinken and Austin said they were writing “to underscore the U.S. government’s deep concern over the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza, and seek urgent and sustained actions by your government this month to reverse this trajectory,” laying out a number of benchmarks the country must meet, including allowing at least 350 aid trucks per day into Gaza.

Though it wasn’t signed by Biden, the letter reflected the president’s previous efforts, according to White House aides.

“This is not an initiative that the President was at all surprised by,” Kirby told reporters Tuesday. “It very much in keeping with the communications that he has had with Prime Minister Netanyahu.”

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