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Events in the Middle East over the past few months have given the world a crash course in how to manage escalation—or, more accurately, how to manage the failure of escalation.
Despite the ongoing carnage in Gaza, the region has not yet descended into the all-out war many feared since October. But it has moved closer to that state in the past few days with a series of dramatic and violent events, including the assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in the Iranian capital, Tehran, on Tuesday night.
Haniyeh was killed hours after an Israeli airstrike killed a senior Hezbollah commander in Beirut, Lebanon, in retaliation for a Hezbollah rocket attack on a soccer stadium in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights on Saturday that killed 12 children.
And more: Tuesday, U.S. went on strike U.S. troops in the region have been the subject of several attacks recently, including one targeting an Iranian-backed militant group in Iraq. Tit for tat Clashes between Iranian-backed militants and U.S. forces in the region were common in the months after Oct. 7, but have been almost nonexistent since early 2024. That has raised concerns that the latest round of violence could mark a return to an uneasy near-open conflict between U.S. and Iranian proxies. Yemen air strikes This was the first time Israel had sent troops in response to a July 19 drone attack by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Tel Aviv that killed one person.
How high is the risk? Haaretz reports Earlier this month, the Israeli think tank Institute for National Security Studies conducted a military exercise that began with a “mysterious assassination in Tehran blamed on Israel.” There are concerns that the exercise will end with a US airstrike on Iran and an all-out regional war.
Such games are designed to help policymakers plan for potential scenarios, not predict the future. Although this may seem strange, given that the region has been tense for months, with strikes and counterattacks coming one after another, all the players, including Israel, Iran, Hezbollah and the United States, may still be struggling to keep the situation at a manageable level.
“It’s the ultimate paradox,” Bilal Saab, a former Defense Department official and Middle East analyst, told Vox. “We’re getting closer and closer to war, but it’s still unlikely because nobody wants it.”
But history is littered with wars that occurred when no one actively wanted them. Paradoxically, even if Israel and Iran don’t want war, their actions only make it more likely.
Haniyeh, 62, has been a member of Hamas since its founding in the 1980s and served as prime minister of the Palestinian Authority after Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian elections. Haniyeh left Gaza in 2019 and lives primarily in Doha, the capital of Qatar. He is the public face and international representative of the group but has little control over its day-to-day operations in Gaza, which are overseen by its leader in the Gaza Strip, Yahya Sinwar. Three of Haniyeh’s children and several grandchildren have reportedly been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza.
Given Haniyeh’s distance from the Gaza front line, his death will have little impact on Hamas’s war with Israel. It will almost certainly deal a heavy blow to the ongoing ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas, which U.S. officials said last week were at a “critical stage.”Ending stage”
Haniyeh is not a “moderate” in any reasonable sense, but according to some reports, he is the most influential figure in the Hamas leadership. The strongest ceasefire advocateOn Wednesday, Qatar’s prime minister said the group’s political leadership is based in Qatar and that Qatar is acting as a mediator in the negotiations. Tweet“How can mediation succeed when one party assassinates the negotiator of the other party?”
If Haniyeh’s killing once again makes a ceasefire impossible, it will be grim news for the people of Gaza, as fighting continues in Gaza and More than 39,000 people According to the Gaza Health Ministry, 1,000 people have been killed since Hamas launched its attack on Israel on October 7, raising the risk of the conflict spreading.
Hezbollah has Launching rockets and drones The Gaza Strip is the main target of Israel’s attacks in the north, and Israel has been fighting back since the beginning of the war. Although the heavily armed militia may want to avoid another all-out war with Israel – the last one was in 2006, when it suffered heavy losses – it cannot stop its attacks as long as the Gaza war continues, otherwise its credibility as an adversary of Israel will be damaged.
This almost certainly means more similar incidents will occur. Killed 12 children A Druze village in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights on Saturday. (Hezbollah has denied responsibility but acknowledged firing several rockets into northern Israel that day.)
“Every day there is no ceasefire in Gaza, the situation on the northern border is becoming more and more tense,” Wali Nasr, a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, told Vox. “In addition, Iran, the Houthis, and others are becoming more and more directly involved in the war. The situation is getting harder and harder to control.”
While retaliation by Hezbollah might make sense, the real question is what Iran will do after Israel successfully penetrates its defenses and kills a prominent ally under its protection.
“I think it’s very likely that Hezbollah will have to take some kind of escalatory action,” Jonathan Lord, a former Pentagon official and director of the Middle East Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, told Vox. “And because Israel attacked Haniya inside Tehran, Iran will also likely need to take some kind of action to restore confidence in its national sovereignty.”
Israel is believed to Carried out several assassinations In recent years, the Israeli government has carried out a series of terrorist attacks on Iranian soil, mainly targeting figures involved in Iran’s nuclear program, although the Israeli government has almost never publicly acknowledged these actions and did not do so in this case. However, the killing of such a high-profile official as Haniyeh, and the fact that he was in Tehran to attend the inauguration of Iran’s new president, has raised the profile of the incident and increased pressure on Iran to respond. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed to retaliate, saying:We consider his revenge our duty.”
In April this year, Israel Damascus air strikesSyria, a senior Iranian general was killed in the Iranian diplomatic building in Tehran Respond to this Hundreds of missiles and drones hit Israel. This was unprecedented—Iran usually attacks Israel through proxy groups rather than directly—but also seemed to be a deliberate attempt to avoid escalation. Although Iran has Hypersonic missiles In its arsenal, it uses Slower moving weaponsmost of which were intercepted, with only one Israeli civilian seriously injured.
New York Times Reports on Wednesday Khamenei has ordered Iran to strike Israel directly again, but the nature of the escalation means the stakes must be raised.
Israel may not be Iran’s only target for retaliation. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken Wednesday said Haniyeh’s killing “is something we had no knowledge of or involvement in.” This may well be true, but the Iranians do not believe it. In a letter to the UN Security Council, the Iranian representative condemned the United States and Israel, writing“This action would not have been possible without U.S. authorization and intelligence support.”
Ali Vaz, Iran project director at the International Crisis Group, told Vox that Iran’s response would likely be “a full-blown axis of retaliation against the United States and Israel.” (The “axis of resistance” is an umbrella term for Iran-backed proxy networks that include Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and several militias in Syria and Iraq.) “That would mean coordinated, simultaneous attacks, which, of course, are much more dangerous and much harder to contain,” Vaz added.
This also means that no matter what form of retaliation Iran takes, the United States and its troops and interests in the region are likely to become victims.
The crisis is a severe test for Iran’s new president, who has been in office for just a week.Death to America” In addition to Haniyeh, representatives of the Houthis, Hezbollah and other resistance axis groups were also present. But Pezeshkian is considered a moderate compared to his predecessor Ibrahim Raisi, who died in a plane crash in May. There are hopes that Pezeshkian may be more willing to negotiate with the United States.
“I believe that this new president came to office with the blessing of the supreme leader to once again explore the possibility of reaching some kind of negotiated solution with the United States,” Nasr said. President Joe Biden took office in 2021 Vows to revive nuclear deal The deal was negotiated in 2015 during the administration of Barack Obama but was abandoned in 2018 by Donald Trump.
Iran has reportedly been advancing its nuclear program in recent weeks. Statement from U.S. officialsWhile Iran and the United States have been able to compartmentalize their relationship in the past — holding nuclear talks even as militias and the U.S. military exchanged fire — that may not be possible this time, depending on what form Iranian retaliation takes.
The United States has closer ties with Israel, so it may also be watching closely for further escalation between Israel and Hezbollah, arguably the world’s most powerful non-state military. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Tuesday He does not think all-out war is “inevitable,” but if it breaks out, “we will help Israel defend itself.”
In light of all these events, one might reasonably ask what kind of “escalation” short of a full-blown regional conflict would entail. Israel and Hezbollah are still not at war on the ground. Israel and Iran are still not engaged in sustained fighting. U.S. forces are still not directly involved in the fighting, aside from periodic airstrikes and occasional attacks by militants.
Yet the guardrails are getting weaker and the situation is growing more tense and dangerous. But this is the Middle East – things can always get worse.
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