The Biden administration wants desperately to lead on a global stage, but its response to the developing crisis in Israel is less blockbuster Broadway hit and more amateur circus act.

Make no mistake, the world needs the United States now perhaps more than it has in decades. Israel is already at war, and global powers across Europe and Asia are watching from the sidelines to see whether their assistance is needed, be that to help Israel eradicate the threat of terrorism at its borders or to complicate the mess further in a grand gesture of global destabilization.

Despite a couple of clear statements on behalf of America's ally, both together with Europe and separately, President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken have operated mostly like robot vacuums, blindly shuffling around until they hit a wall and then abruptly changing direction — at least, where they have direction.

The messaging morass began almost concurrently with Hamas's attack. The State Department responded first with a tweet from the U.S. Office of Palestinian Affairs, urging Israel, which was still seeing its residents being murdered and kidnapped in real-time, to “refrain from violence and retaliatory attacks" because "terror and violence solve nothing." The post was quickly deleted , but no further word was released until hours later, well after most other Western nations had already weighed in.

The State Department failed to rein in its social media interns by nightfall when Blinken's own account suggested that the U.S. State Department supported Turkey's calls for a "cease-fire," though at that point Israel had yet to respond (it was, however, calling up reserves).

That post, too, was quickly deleted. It turns out that the U.S. was not about to call for a cease-fire, and diplomacy-by-intern had failed yet again.

This is no laughing matter. At least 27 Americans were killed in Saturday's attacks, many remain missing and could be hostages, and dozens of Americans are reportedly trapped in Israel, with few options to evacuate. The president gave a powerful speech on Tuesday and issued a few strongly worded collaborative statements with other allied nations, but that seems to be the extent of the White House's interest in on-the-ground rescue. Americans trapped in Israel have received little to no help from the embassy.

The Biden administration has an option it sounds ready to exercise, according to rumors swirling Thursday morning: It can freeze the $6 billion destined for Iranian coffers, as rumors swirl that Iran had a major hand in helping Hamas pull off the largest attack on Israel in decades. It could pressure the United Nations to return weapons sanctions on Iran. Biden officials would have to admit they were wrong, of course, but there's no time like the present to reverse course on cutting off the munitions supply to the society of super-villains running nefarious schemes across the Middle East.

The problem is that the Biden administration's instincts in the matter run to conflict avoidance, not shows of strength. But while you can delete bad tweets, it's a lot harder to make mid-stream changes in international foreign policy. If the administration, against advice, goes forward with the $6 billion deposit, there's no intern to admonish when that money frees up funds for a fleet of Hezbollah hang gliders.

And it will free up those funds — because while Hamas is the one beheading babies, it's Iran pulling the strings.

It's clear that the Biden administration does not want to implicate Iran, and certainly not in the way the Trump administration did, by painting a clear red line. It would rather pretend that Iran is a foreign player, weighing in on Israel only on occasion and that the ayatollah’s opinions on the matter of Hamas are entirely contained to the same social media Biden's State Department is playing on.

For all of Trump’s bluster, the administration was laser-focused on Iran, keeping the leash tight and the sanctions tighter. When Iran failed to adhere to them, allowing one of its puppet militias to attack a U.S. military base in Iraq, a tactical airstrike allowed Qasem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force, to experience martyrdom for the cause, and Iran limited its response to jokes about the then-president’s appearance.

As hard as this may be for Biden, he has to follow Trump‘s lead. It may look different — after all, this time its proxy militia, Hamas, attacked Israel, an ally, and not the U.S. — but it can’t be any less narrowly focused. Israel’s army can handle Hamas. Biden needs to handle the bigger problem, Iran, and sooner rather than later.

Emily Zanotti is a writer and editor based in Nashville, Tennessee. Her work focuses on the impacts of policy on the home front and can be found here and on her Substack, " Because, Obviously ."