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Ambassador Robert Wood of the US raises his hand to vote against the ceasefire resolution at the United Nations Security Council, on November 20, 2024.
US vetoes Gaza ceasefire resolution
US vetoes Gaza ceasefire resolution
The US on Wednesday cast the lone veto to sink a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate, unconditional ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
Washington said it opposed the measure because of wording that would have allowed Hamas to wait until after a ceasefire to release the roughly 100 remaining hostages that it still holds in Gaza. This is the fourth time the United States has blocked a ceasefire resolution of this kind.
The draft also called for Palestinian civilians in Gaza to be allowed to return to their homes, for the unhindered delivery of humanitarian aid to the strip, and for a complete withdrawal of Israeli forces.
The resolution’s failure comes as the humanitarian situation in Gaza continues to worsen. Earlier this week, unknown armed men looted roughly 100 trucks in a humanitarian convoy, causing food prices in the already-starving enclave to soar. The UN estimates only 16% of the 1.7 million people in central and southern Gaza have received adequate food rations.
Last week a 30 day ultimatum ran out for Israel to improve humanitarian access to the Strip or risk losing some US arms transfers. Washington said Israel had done the bare minimum to satisfy its concerns.
Podcast: The State of the World in 2024 with Ian Bremmer
Listen: The world is grappling with intense political and humanitarian challenges—raging wars, surging nationalism, and a warming climate, to name a few. Yet, we also stand at the brinkof some of the most transformative opportunities in human history. So how do we make sense of the future and what’s next? Ian Bremmer breaks it all down in a special edition of the GZERO World Podcast: The 2024 State of the World.
Each year, Ian examines the biggest political moments (and movements) and shares an honest assessment of where we are… and where we’re going. Most worrying? Leadership, or rather, the glaring lack of it. Nowhere is this clearer than in ongoing wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, where everyone claims to want peace, but no one is both willing and able to make it happen. But it’s not all bleak.There are plenty of reasons for optimism. Ian Bremmer discusses the good, the bad, and where we all go from here in his 2024 State of the World, delivered live at the GZERO Summit in Tokyo, Japan.
Subscribe to the GZERO World Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or your preferred podcast platform, to receive new episodes as soon as they're published.
After Israel's response to Iran, what's next?
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: A Quick Take to kick off your week. No, not US elections, that'll be next week. This week. Want to talk about the Middle East and the fact that the Israelis almost a month after Iran launched 180 ballistic missiles at Israel, though most of them didn't get through and no Israeli deaths on the ground, nonetheless, the Israelis expected to respond. And respond they finally have.
Military targets that they focused on. They did some damage, caused more damage to Iran than the Iranians did to Israel during their attack. That's clearly a message that the Israelis intended to send in terms of their ability to have dominance over both escalation and deterrence between the two. Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei, on the back of that, said not to exaggerate or downplay the strikes, that the Iranians will respond, but also the Iranians said that they fully intercepted the Israeli attack. In other words, nothing big to see here. Crude oil down about 6% today. In other words, this is the end of this escalation cycle between Iran and Israel.
Now, I have been critical of the Biden administration's inability to have much of any impact on Israeli decision-making over the course of this war. This time is a little different, they did have some impact here. And in the early days after the Israelis were hit by Iran, and keep in mind the Iranians got that information that the strike was coming to the United States, the US, of course, immediately shared it with Israel and did everything they could to coordinate with allies in the region to defend Israel effectively, which helped to ensure that the Israelis didn't take casualties, significant casualties.
But also the Biden administration saying they really didn't want Israel to engage in strikes against nuclear targets in Iran, against oil targets in Iran. And they did a couple of things for Israel. First, they sent an additional THAAD missile defense system, which they got to Israel and set up within two weeks on the ground, which is incredible fast-tracking to help further defend Israel.
Secondly, they actually took sanctions, put sanctions on additional tankers that were shutting down their transponders and shipping oil illegally for Iranian export. Not everything. The Iranians have over a million barrels a day that they get out, but probably took about 200,000 barrels a day off the market. In other words, that's money that the Iranians no longer have access to that they were able to use for whatever they wanted, including paying for Iranian proxies that target Israel.
In response for that and American diplomacy, the Israelis ended up, I would argue, with a slightly more restrained strike against Iran. They did engage in hits against Iranian missile production facilities, as well as defense against their ... that helps to defend their nuclear, their research program and weapons program, such as it is, which means that Israel has made it very clear to Iran that if they want to do this again, that Iran is not going to be able to defend itself effectively. So the message has been very, very clearly sent.
Of course, it was also helpful for Israel that they were able to kill Sinwar, the Palestinian Hamas leader, in Rafah, in Gaza, over the past couple of weeks. I mean, the Israeli war cabinet is flying high from a military perspective right now. They didn't need to show great capacity against Iran, nor have they, given their recent successes against Hezbollah.
I think it's interesting how Iran is responding to all of this, that we're seeing Iranian leaders, not just on the president and foreign affairs side, who are more reformist in orientation, but also recently Ali Velayati, who's an advisor to the Supreme Leader, saying that the Iranians are very interested in engaging more with the West, specifically with Europe. In other words, with the Iranians seeing that they are clearly on the back foot vis-a-vis Israel, is there any way that they can more effectively engage with the West, normalized relations, maybe end up with more money for their economy that way?
Certainly, I expect that they are also thinking heavily about what else they can do in their nuclear program, either illicitly or maybe with Russian support. But for now, it looks like Israel's policies vis-a-vis Iran have played out successfully, in part because they are the strongest military game without question in town.
That's where we are right now. Those are the latest headlines, and for the next week we're going to be talking a lot about US elections. I'll talk to you all real soon.
Global economy at risk if Middle East conflict expands, says World Bank's Ayhan Kose
While the global economy shows signs of growth and decreasing inflation, the near future involves risks, including the escalation in the Middle East impacting oil prices, strained China-US relations, and an increasingly challenging tariff and trade environment, said Ayhan Kose, World Bank Deputy Chief Economist. He discussed the geopolitical tensions influencing the global economy with GZERO's Tony Maciulis at the IMF and World Bank Annual Meetings in Washington, DC, in a GZERO Global Stage interview. Kose also addressed the other major economic gathering happening this week: Russia’s 16th annual BRICS Summit in Kazan, Russia, largely seen as a counterweight to Western-led order. While acknowledging the widening economic and geopolitical divide, Kose emphasized the need for international cooperation. He expressed concern about “the increase in the number of protectionist measures and consequences of that for global trade.” Kose also emphasized the "urgent and important" need for World Bank member nations to continue to support development in poorer countries, a more difficult conversation today as many face their own economic headwinds and the world awaits the results of the 2024 US presidential election.
Israel's next move
And secondly, the US Treasury Department has announced additional sanctions against tankers that have shut off their transponders and are helping the Iranians to illegally export significant amounts of sanction-breaking oil. Prices can go up on the back of that. An unusual thing for the Americans to do a few weeks before the election, but shows just how concerned they are about potential escalation in the region. So let me give you some context here. First point. On the one hand, the Americans have sent THAAD systems to Israel before. So it's not like there aren't any American soldiers on the ground operating in Israel. This is not such a game-changer. In fact, such a decision was made not only years ago, but also after October 7th. But it is notable that it comes a year later on the back of potential significant escalation, both in the Northern front that we're already seeing and with Iran that we might be.
Second point is that the oil prices continue to be a little bit under 80 bucks. OPEC has a lot of spare capacity they could put on the market. China continues to have pretty poor numbers in terms of demand. So this isn't likely to have the American move to hit more Iranian oil, isn't likely to have a lot of impact in terms of oil prices. But if the Americans could have stopped what is right now 1.5 million barrels of Iranian export if they could have taken that down and the Iranians are using that money to pay for the Axis of Resistance that's targeting not only Israel but targeting ships in the Middle East, targeting American and UK military assets, why did Biden wait? Why is it only being announced now? And why is it only being announced now in a way that seems to be a gimme for the Israeli Prime Minister and his government in return for not engaging in significant retaliatory escalation against the Iranians?
This is a US policy that continues to look very weak, that continues to be out of step with most of its allies at this point. You see even French President Macron saying that he doesn't want to provide any more military support for Israel. Of course, it's easy for him to say that. He doesn't provide much to begin with. If it was a significant export, I'm sure Macron wouldn't be saying that. But nonetheless, the Americans are on really one very isolated side at this point compared to the rest of the international community, whether you like the United States or you don't. And their ability to influence the Israeli government appears to be virtually zero. And that has been shown with the recent attacks by the Israeli Defense Forces against UN peacekeepers in Lebanon. And we've seen that on the back of those attacks that the United States, France, Spain, Italy, which is a strong right-wing government, but also has a thousand peacekeepers on the ground in Lebanon, all strongly condemning the Israelis for making these attacks.
But not prepared to actually do anything in response and certainly not making the Israelis feel like they need to stop. Now the Israeli perspective is these peacekeepers have not been capable of upholding Security Council resolution that required that Hezbollah pull back from the border area, a buffer zone, that they've been launching military strikes against Israel. And that also Hezbollah fighters are essentially using the presence of the peacekeepers as shields. And that they're operating not on the peacekeeper's bases but in proximity, which makes it harder for the Israelis to go after them. That certainly doesn't justify firing directly on the peacekeepers base, which has happened, and which now the IDF says a mistake. In return, the Israeli Prime Minister has called on the UN Secretary-General to withdraw the peacekeepers. I find it implausible that the Israeli Prime Minister doesn't realize that the Secretary-General has actually no authority over the peacekeepers.
They're sent there on the basis of the Security Council. So in other words, if the Israeli Prime Minister wants to make a demand, he's making it of the permanent members of the Security Council like the United States and China and France, the UK and Russia. He apparently doesn't want to make that statement. But again, the point here is the comparative impunity, and the major headlines, of course, are in the last 24 hours, around four Israeli soldiers that have been targeted and killed, as well as a large number of injuries on Israeli military bases by Hezbollah drones. Hezbollah is much more capable than Hamas has been, and there will be more significant Israeli casualties as this war continues. But most of the casualties, of course, even though it's not most of the headlines, will be among the Lebanese, among the Hezbollah fighters, and among the Lebanon civilian population, of which we've seen about 2,000 killed so far.
And that is because the military dominance in the region, again, both offense and defense and intelligence and surveillance, is overwhelmingly in the hands of Israel. So if there's going to be significant escalation in the war going forward, that escalation will be decided overwhelmingly by the Israeli government. And so that's what is particularly interesting to watch over the coming weeks. I am not expecting very much against Iran, frankly. The fact that the Israelis have already waited for a couple of weeks takes a lot of the urgency out of that. The fact that the Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has said, "It will be the time of our choosing and what we do, they'll know that it was us, but they won't know how we did it," implies something that is a much more targeted attack than lots and lots of bombs raining down against, you know, sort of a nuclear facility or against oil production.
It would not surprise me if it was a high-level assassination, for example, against the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, the IRGC. Especially because we already saw that when the Trump administration assassinated Qasem Soleimani, the Iranian response was virtually nothing. So there's precedent for that, and the Iranians have very little at this point that they can do that wouldn't hurt them a hell of a lot more than they can hurt Israel or Israel's allies. So that's where we are right now. A war that continues to escalate with a lot of suffering on the back of it. An incredibly ineffective US policy in the region, and everybody else pretty much sitting on the sidelines.
How October 7th changed Israel and the Middle East
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: A Quick Take to kick off your week. It is October 7th, and that means one year since Hamas perpetrated the worst terrorist attacks since 9/11. Almost 1,200 Israelis dead, mostly civilians, and still a hundred plus held hostage from that day a year ago. Not much progress on that latter front or on a ceasefire. Not much progress in the region since then. What it did do, of course, on October 7th, is it outraged and unified what had been a very divided Israeli population, divided with massive internal demonstrations on domestic political issues. And suddenly the only issue that mattered was responding to, redressing those attacks, whether you're on the left or the right in Israel and being able to defend the Israeli homeland and get the hostages back.
On the former, they've certainly been effective, hitting back as hard as possible. We've seen that Hamas today is a shell of what it was on October 7th a year ago. The leadership mostly dead. The weapons caches mostly destroyed. The tunnels mostly sealed. Hezbollah, the most powerful non-state military actor in the world, has been damaged critically, and they started rocket attacks against Israel a day after the October 7th terrorist attacks. Israel has now opened up a second front, really the primary front now in the war, and after a couple of weeks of that war, Hezbollah's leadership is dead. Their communication capacity was critically destroyed. The war is ongoing but is certainly not going well for Hezbollah. On the one hand, you've seen a major escalation from the rockets and the bombing happening in Gaza to a ground war across the entirety of that territory now to Lebanon and with significant shots fired missiles and the rest military operations with Iran's other proxies, the Houthis and Yemen, Shia militants in Syria and Iraq, and of course involving Iran itself.
On the other hand, the capacity of these proxy organizations to escalate in return is now far, far less capable, far less serious. Hamas cannot threaten Israel the way they could on October 7th. Hezbollah certainly far, far diminished in their ability to escalate even if they want to. Two big questions are remaining. First, Iran. They are a country that still has all sorts of capabilities to escalate if they wish, possibly not effectively against Israel itself, but against the West, against the world. If they wanted to, they could completely disrupt oil tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, and as a consequence, ensure that much of the oil that comes out of the Middle East, not just Iran's one and a half million barrels a day of export but from the Gulf states is stuck in place. And that would mean oil prices towards $150, even in a depressed demand environment as we see now, and a global recession.
So Iran's capacity, if they want to escalate, is far, far greater than that of Hezbollah or Hamas or anyone else in the region. And they have shown themselves to be quite risk-averse in response to Israeli strikes against Iranian leaders across the region, military leaders, and also against Hamas leadership in Tehran. And that was true back in April, and that was true back a week ago. But still, we are awaiting what is almost certainly going to be an Israeli response, a military response, against Iran for the 180 ballistic missiles that they launched against Israel with no fatalities in Israel. One in the West Bank of a Palestinian, but nonetheless, certainly could have caused a lot of people to be killed. And we will see if that the Israeli response leads to further Iranian escalation. I am at this point hopeful, and I would even say optimistic, that it does not, but optimism feels like exactly the wrong word to describe any of this in the region.
Then the second big question remaining is about the devastation on the ground. In Gaza, for the last year, a million and a half Palestinians are now living on the back of humanitarian aid of on average 125-ish trucks coming in a day. That's compared to 800 to 1000 on average before October 7th. As well as all of those tunnels which have now been sealed, they brought a lot of arms and illicit goods in. They also brought things like food, luxury food stuffs, and other things that you could buy on the gray market in Gaza. Those are closed, and there's no Gaza economy. There's no local Gaza agriculture right now. So the 1.5 million Palestinians are living in an absolutely unimaginable condition on single-digit percentage calories, many of them, in terms of consumption from what they would have been living on before October 7th.
Then you have the West Bank, which has been indirectly involved in the fighting. There's been a lot of skirmishing, a lot of shooting, a lot of people getting killed. And then also Israeli settlers and the IDF taking and securing more land from the Palestinians there. Then of course, in Lebanon in the last two weeks, you have over a million Lebanese who have been displaced from that fighting. Far more will be displaced in all likelihood in the coming weeks. All of this from a humanitarian perspective unacceptable by any yardstick. The United States seen by most of the world as complicit in watching it and not providing the either restraint on Israel or the humanitarian support effectively to help ensure that the suffering is reduced. And of course, this is going to cause hatred and radicalization for generations. And antisemitism was already way too high and on an upswing before October 7th, certainly only greater in this environment a year later.
And of course, with all of this, we don't know what's going to happen with upcoming elections. Kamala Harris came out on "60 Minutes" and described the United States as the best friend of the Israeli people around the world, refused to say whether or not the US was an ally of Prime Minister Netanyahu himself. A very strained relationship between the United States and the Israeli Prime Minister today. While former President Trump came out publicly in the last few days and said that the Israeli government, the Israeli military, should actively take out Iran's nuclear capabilities. So frankly, I would say between Harris and Trump, their policies, their orientation specifically on the Middle East and the Israeli wars in Gaza, in Lebanon, and the fighting we're seeing with Iran, probably the biggest difference on foreign policy between those two candidates would be on this issue. And we will find out in a month plus who is going to lead the United States, but utterly critical as we think about the future of this conflict in the region.
So that is where we are a year after the October 7th terrorist attacks, and now very deep in expanding war that is affecting much of the region. And I will continue to talk about it and follow it for you. So I hope everyone's going well, and I'll talk to you all real soon.
- Iran's next move: Interview with VP Javad Zarif ›
- Israel, Hamas, and Hezbollah: Fears of escalation grow ›
- Israel’s geopolitical missteps in Gaza ›
- Ian Bremmer: Understanding the Israel-Hamas war ›
- Israel-Hamas war: Who is responsible for Gaza's enormous civilian death toll? ›
- Podcast: The State of the World in 2024 with Ian Bremmer - GZERO Media ›
Israel's Iron Dome anti-missile system intercepts rockets after Iran fired a salvo of ballistic missiles, as seen from Ashkelon, Israel, October 1, 2024.
“Tough week” ahead after Iranian missile strikes on Israel
Iran on Tuesday night launched a massive wave of ballistic missiles at Israel, in apparent retaliation for Israel’s recent devastating strikes against Iran-backed proxies across the region.
Most of the more than 180 missiles were shot down by Israeli and US systems, and as of this writing, no deaths were reported. The attack, coming just hours after Israel began a ground invasion of Lebanon, has raised acute fears of a widening war between Israel and Iran.
The UN Security Council will hold an emergency meeting to discuss the matter on Wednesday morning. Permanent members Russia and China are close with Iran, while the US, which backs Israel, earlier warned Tehran of “severe consequences” for any strikes.
This is the second time Iran has launched an attack like this. The first, in April, was a drone and cruise missile attack, which was largely repulsed in a similar fashion. The ballistic missiles used in this week’s wave travel faster, with less warning time.
The ball is in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s court again. Iran seemed to signal that it didn’t want further escalation, tweeting that its airstrike operation was complete after an hour or so. But late Tuesday, Netanyahu said Iran had “made a big mistake,” vowing that Tehran “would pay for it.”
Netanyahu, rebounding in the polls, is eager to erase the stain of Oct. 7, 2023, and keen to seize the moment for a deathblow against what he calls “Iran’s Axis of Evil.” The fact that Iran’s ballistic barrages have hardly scratched Israel may only embolden him.
“Iran took a shot at Israel today,” says Cliff Kupchan, head of research at Eurasia Group and a longtime Iran-watcher, “that was a very dangerous move.”
“Israel is in a period of ‘maximum Bibi,’ a politically strong and hubris-filled Netanyahu will hit back hard. It’s going to be a tough week for geopolitics.”
Israel vs. Hezbollah
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: A Quick Take from New York City. The United Nations General Assembly, High-Level Week. You've got heads of state from all over the world converging on New York, which means you're walking everywhere or taking the subway. You certainly don't want to be stuck in traffic.
What I wanted to talk about today though is not that, it is the war going on in the Middle East, continuing to expand. It's now the Northern front. It's Israel versus Hezbollah. In Lebanon, you have tens of thousands of Lebanese over the last 24 hours that have been fleeing for parts north so that they don't get caught up in the bombing. Hundreds of Lebanese have been killed, thousands injured, and that's just in the last 24 hours of Israeli strikes.
This has been percolating for a long time, the likelihood of escalation beyond just Gaza. The reason, if you're Israel, is because there are some 60,000 Israelis that live in the North of Israel, or should I say lived because they've been evacuated for almost a year. That's a pretty significant piece of the Israeli population. It's the equivalent of like if Connecticut or Louisiana was evacuated for a year after 9/11. So, it's created a lot of pressure on Israel to do something about it. But they've been slow-walking this. And the reason they've slow-walked it is because there's been a war going on in Gaza.
Having said that, the war in Gaza is now almost wrapped up. Not because the ceasefire is likely, but because the tunnels that they've found, they've destroyed, they've sealed. The military leaders, they've killed a lot of them. The military fighters, they've killed a lot of them. So the Israelis have now moved most of the Israeli defense forces out of Gaza, and they're available to defend borders across the country, available for operations if they need them in the North.
I wouldn't be surprised if the Israelis announce an end to major military operations in Gaza over the coming weeks because there's honestly not all that much more for them to hit. But that doesn't mean they're done. And again, the focus here is on what happens in Lebanon. This certainly is not all-out war. It's not striking across the entire country. The strikes have been at the south of Lebanon to try to make sure that they ensure, establish a buffer zone that will let the Israelis move back.
The big question is what kind of a response does that elicit from Hezbollah or even from their supporter, Iran? And so far, there's been not all that much. Is that restraint because Hezbollah is scared of an all-out war that ends up destroying their fighters the way you've seen Hamas and Gaza? Or is it because they're concerned of being seen as a paper tiger where their military capabilities aren't enough to actually provide significant offensive capacity vis-a-vis a heavily defended and extremely technologically superior Israel?
When Iran launched some 300 missiles and drones against Israel back, I guess in April, it was targeted. But there was an intention to be able to go in and do some damage against military targets. Caused almost no damage because the Israelis, with the Americans helping them, were able to identify and knock them down. So perhaps possible the Israelis are getting away with this because of their massive military advantages, their superiority, that no one is really a threat to them as long as they have their eye on the ball. But the danger is that this war continues to escalate.
The danger is that even if Hezbollah can't do that much, proxies in the region are going to continue to fight, are going to continue to strike. And of course, the long-term danger is that the ability of Palestinians to live effectively has deteriorated wildly, both in Gaza where a million and a half no longer have the ability to live normal lives, and as well as in the West Bank where larger numbers of amounts of territory has been taken. If that extends to Lebanon, which is an economy that's doing relatively badly at the best of times, then long-term, more radicalization, more instability. Very far from a two-state solution, very far from peace. All the Middle East leaders that I've seen in New York over the last 24 hours have said that this is the worst that they've seen since 1967.