Many are exposed in the accounts of their colleagues upon which “Crossing the Red Line” relies. As they recall, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, McGurk and Biden quickly pursued a blank-check policy of support for Israel’s genocide. They avoided drawing conclusions as to whether the Israeli military violated international law. According to the book, McGurk consistently pursued personal vanity projects like Israeli normalization with Saudi Arabia as Israel’s atrocities in Gaza raged.
Other figures may be less familiar. Mira Resnick of the State Department’s arms transfers bureau — empowered by her boss, Jessica Lewis — forced weapons sales to Israel and stymied accountability efforts, including by spearheading opposition to congressional efforts to block sales. Israeli officials insisted on discussing their war crimes investigation with Resnick, who displayed awards from the Israeli government in her office. Likewise, Uzra Zeya, who oversaw the human rights, humanitarian and international justice bureaus at the State Department and now leads the non-profit Human Rights First, discouraged her teams from “internal critiques of the U.S.-Israeli approach to the war” and blocked efforts to implement U.S. laws conditioning arms sales on humanitarian access. The U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Jack Lew, justified arms sales to Israel with perfunctory risk assessments that whitewashed humanitarian access concerns.
Other officials covered in Ahmed’s book are those who saw the administration’s Gaza policies fail but chose to remain. USAID Administrator Samantha Power, U.N. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield and Deputy National Security Advisor Jon Finer criticized the U.S. approach while repeatedly and willingly quelling opposition. They retained their roles by softening criticism, thereby maintaining access and, of course, safeguarding their careers.
Ahmed avoids telling his readers how they should judge these people. Yet in reading his account, I asked myself: Where were their red lines? What would it have taken for them to resign and speak out publicly? I recall a line from Omar El Akkad’s book, “One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This,” where he writes, “The moral component of history, the most necessary component, is simply a single question asked over and over again: when it mattered, who sided with justice and who sided with power?”
Many did choose justice, as “Crossing the Red Line” covers in detail. Ahmed discusses how congressional leaders like Sen. Chris Van Hollen, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Joaquin Castro pressed the administration to grapple with reality and end arms sales to Israel. He recounts Abbas Alawieh and Layla El Abed of the Uncommitted Movement and their warnings to the Democratic Party establishment of the depth of voters’ disillusionment with the administration’s approach. Several individuals who publicly resigned from administration roles in protest feature prominently.
“Crossing the Red Line” is not a polemic, nor is it intended to be. It is a remarkable, first-of-its-kind account of some of the greatest moral failures in recent U.S. foreign policy. For anyone who watched in horror as American bombs wiped out families in Gaza, this book explains how it happened and who made it possible. For aspiring foreign policy professionals contemplating government careers, it is a cautionary tale of how civil service can veer into war crimes complicity. And for those advising presidential aspirants on their personnel picks as Gaza has become a defining political and moral issue of our time, this book is a performance review for those vying to return to power.
As Ahmed writes, “Biden and his top aides oversaw disaster and then lost power, but few were humbled by the experience.”
Ahmed does not shy away from identifying trends or drawing critical conclusions, yet his journalistic discipline will make the book difficult for even Washington power players to ignore. In this sense, one question echoes throughout the book: When it comes to picking people to make policy and hold power, where is your “red line?”
The views and positions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of DAWN.