The situation has little equivalent in the recent past. In the Middle East, the Biden administration is willing to follow in the footsteps of an ally, Israel, which is engaged in military operations on several fronts, in Gaza, Lebanon and even Yemen. These are operations that Washington would like to limit, for fear of unpredictable regional escalation, but whose results it praises and whose conduct it facilitates, with massive American deployment in the eastern Mediterranean, in addition to continuing arms deliveries. It's a kind of absolute contradiction in terms – particularly delicate to accept 37 days before the presidential election – which reached its peak in the last week of September.

While in New York on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, American and French diplomats were busy promoting the idea of a truce in Lebanon, the Israeli army was preparing a historic strike in Beirut, against Hezbollah's underground headquarters. A strike in which the organization's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, died, and which probably required the use of 900-kilogram American-made bombs, according to the Washington Post.

The fact that Israel did not warn the Pentagon of the impending operation is not necessarily surprising, since the country has always preserved its ability to act autonomously. But the Biden administration was convinced, in the light of diplomatic exchanges, that Benjamin Netanyahu and his entourage approved the concept of a 21-day ceasefire. A mere smokescreen. The gap between intentions and reality has become so wide that it's difficult to find any coherence in the position taken by the White House. The repeated anonymous leaks to the press recounting Joe Biden's irritation with the Israeli prime minister are all the more futile.

In a statement on Saturday, September 28, the American president began by stressing that Nasrallah's death represented "a measure of justice for his many victims, including thousands of Americans, Israelis and Lebanese civilians." It was, however, indirectly with Hezbollah that American mediator Amos Hochstein, adviser to Biden, had worked in the fall of 2022 for the conclusion of a historic agreement between Israel and the Lebanese government. It was a mere approval of the delimitation of the maritime border between the two neighboring countries, essential for the exploitation of gas resources. Shortly before the summer, the United States was hoping for the same outcome on the land border, distinguishing this issue from that of a ceasefire in Gaza, demanded by Hezbollah.

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