The one thing U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration feared most since Hamas attacked Israel is that the confrontation would escalate and engulf the entire region, pulling the U.S. into yet another war in the Middle East.
And the tit-for-tat strikes between Israel and Iran over the last few weeks has put Washington on edge.
While the 19 days of retaliatory strikes now seem to be behind us, this episode has created new risks of escalation, with Israel and Iran moving their shadow war out in the open by striking each other’s territory directly and with greater force— and there’s no going back now.
Over the past six months, the Biden administration has worked hard to prevent exactly this type of trajectory….
Read the rest of my article in Politico Europe here.
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