The looming war that could define a Kamala Harris presidency

As Kamala Harris sat alongside Joe Biden in the Situation Room on Monday evening, she may have felt some trepidation. The president and vice president were about to be briefed — for hours — on the threat of regional war between Israel and Iran. Harris was now advising as vice president on a war she may soon have to take on as president.

Israel’s assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyehin in July, at a crucial moment in a months-long White House effort to reach a ceasefire deal, has brought the Middle East to the brink of war. It has also, importantly, brought US-Israel relations to breaking point.

Harris has been in the room as the Gaza war has spread over the past ten months. As the White House now prepares for an Iranian response that would inevitably draw in US forces sent to the region to protect Israel, she has retained that front-row seat.

She was on the call when Biden reportedly erupted in fury at Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu for after the assassination of Haniyeh, which sparked this latest round of fighting and likely collapsed a ceasefire deal with Hamas in Gaza.

“Stop bullsh*tting me,” Biden reportedly told the Israeli prime minister on Thursday, frustrated over Netanyahu’s unwillingness to agree to a ceasefire.

“Don’t take the president for granted,” he added.

Biden finally losing his patience after months of seemingly being strung along by Netanyahu is a moment that may define US-Israel relations for years to come. And Harris’s proximity to the fallout should give her the opportunity to avoid repeating Biden’s mistakes.

“She has had a front-row seat and a fantastic mentor on foreign policy over these last … four years,” Brett Bruen, a former US foreign service officer who served as Director