President Joe Biden’s twofold policy of intercepting Iran’s attack on Israel and urging Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to retaliate makes for a troublesome combination, according to European officials and analysts worried about threats from Russia.

“I was super happy to see Western superiority against axis of evil technical capabilities,” a senior European official told the Washington Examiner. “That was a really, really good feeling. But I see our rhetoric and our — I mean, the West — deeds are not matching at all.” 

Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s team has coordinated with some Western European allies to discourage Netanyahu from targeting Iran despite characterizing the attempted bombardment of Israeli targets as “clearly an escalatory act.” Yet these U.S. diplomatic maneuvers risk giving off the impression that Biden is overanxious to avoid escalation, a signal that alarms some allied observers and could embolden adversaries.

“Here is, again, the American president not being prepared to at least stick to the principle or apply the principle of strategic ambiguity,” Stefanie Babst, who led NATO’s Strategic Foresight Team from 2012 to 2020, told the Washington Examiner. “If you’re really so concerned about military escalation, then the minimum that you do — and it doesn’t cost you — a lot is to keep your adversary guessing.”

Instead, Biden’s team hastened on Sunday to confirm that the United States “would not be a part of any response” to Iran’s attempted bombardment of Israel, even while also characterizing it as an unprecedented and dangerous attack. That messaging makes for a marked contrast to how then-President Donald Trump threatened Iran in the hours after a U.S. strike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani.

Biden’s team “asked us to use our diplomatic channels [with Iran] to ask them not to [escalate] but also Israel not to answer in an escalatory mode,” the senior European official said. “During the time of Trump, Trump sent a message to Iran that we will hit you. … So there’s an interesting difference, actually.”

The mixed response to the Israel-Iran standoff has resonated across NATO, as Western officials are engaged in an intra-European and trans-Atlantic debate about how to support Ukraine in the face of brutal bombardments from Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces.

“You have a lot of NATO allies — you know, Poland, the Baltic States — scratching their heads, saying…Well, what will happen if Putin attacks us? Are they going to tell us to don’t fight back, they’re going to not attack Russia?’’ Kurt Volker, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO, told the Washington Examiner.  “It sends alarm bells.”

That comparison may seem off base given Biden’s oft-stated invocation of the collective defense provisions of the NATO treaty — “a sacred oath to defend every inch” of the trans-Atlantic alliance, as he puts it. Yet the Israel-Iran crisis has flared just weeks after a Russian missile traveled through Poland’s airspace in late March.

“We [say we] are protecting every inch of NATO territory, and then we are letting Russian missiles flying over territory over Poland four times and we are not shooting it down,” the senior European official said. “NATO members, at the same time, shooting down missiles which are heading towards Israel. Not even [in] the airspace of Israel, but long before. This is absurd, for me, as a state official of NATO country.”

After Jordanian military forces cooperated with the U.S.-led multinational effort to thwart Iran’s attack, the Arab monarchy explained their actions by noting that the Iranian munitions “entered our airspace” and “posed a threat to our people and populated areas.” In the case of Poland and the Russian missile, NATO forces seem to have decided that a passing violation need not be met with a response.

“The excuse was it was there only 39 seconds; we didn’t it take it down because we thought that it will go out and hit Ukraine anyway,” the senior European official said. “That’s so stupid! Right. What will be the time [that is long enough that] we will take it down above the NATO sky? Three minutes, 19 seconds?”

The efficacy of Western efforts to intercept Iranian drones and ballistic missiles, some of which are the same munitions that Russia is using against Ukraine, has revived a controversy in Europe about how much support to provide Ukraine. In fairness to Biden, his posture has support in key European capitals. British Foreign Secretary David Cameron and German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock traveled to Jerusalem after a call with Blinken in an apparent effort to amplify U.S. efforts to persuade Israel not to retaliate.

Both U.S. and European Union officials have rebuffed calls for Western allies to aid Ukraine the way they aided Israel.

“Israel is a major non-NATO ally of the United States. Ukraine is just in a different position in that we did not have that kind of agreement with them prior to the immediate months before this conflict,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Tuesday. “We are not going to be in direct armed conflict with Russia. … It’s in the interests of the American people that we not be in direct armed conflict between the United States and Russia because we do not want World War III.”

Ultimately, these policy debates stem from contrary theories of how to manage risk; a policy that one government regards as the best way to avoid escalation is perceived, in another capital, as a choice that encourages Western enemies. 

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

“Western fear of escalating the situation by providing air defense to Ukraine will allow Russia to take advantage of such hesitation for its benefit,” Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielus Landsbergis told his European Union counterparts on Tuesday.

Babst, the former NATO strategist, concurred. “[Biden] shies away from playing hardball with a hardball adversary, which [in this case] is Tehran,” she said. “Our adversaries have now repeatedly demonstrated that they are prepared to use big-scale military force. … So you don’t, in the next couple of hours, say, ‘No, no, no, we don’t want to do anything further.’ … I think this is a fatal misjudgment of our adversaries’ intention. They interpret this again as a sign of weakness. And that’s why they keep on poking and poking and poking and poking.”