White House says no sign escalation in Middle East is imminent
White House adviser John Kirby has been speaking to the press. Here are the main points he made:
- The White House is not in a position to confirm the events in Tehran and whether the killing of Hamas’s political chief Ismail Haniyeh was Israel’s doing. I can state that I had no conversations around that reporting that I can speak of today.
- Achieving a deal in Gaza has always been a complicated process. It’s too soon to know what any of these reported events could mean, but we’re not going to stop working on it.
- We don’t believe that an escalation in the Middle East is inevitable, and there’s no signs that an escalation is imminent. This is something that has been a concern all along since October 7.
- The president was briefed on the reports of the events in the Middle East but I’m not going to comment on the exact timing.
WTF do you call 2 political assassinations, one the negotiator for a ceasefire, while continuing to bomb Gaza and targeting more journalists? That is a huge escalation.
White House assessment downplays risk of escalation
Commenting on the statements made by the White House, Glenn Carle, a former US deputy national intelligence officer, said he believed the assessment made by adviser John Kirby to be downplaying the risk of a regional escalation.
Carle said the US may not be picking up from the intelligence and diplomatic community any plans to retaliate on Israeli targets at present.
“This I think it’s true for the moment,” Carle said. “All parties – Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas and Israel – continue to wish to avoid an expansion of the war in Gaza, but Kirby didn’t address what I think is most likely, which is that they are obliged to respond,” he said.
Carle also said the US may well not have had prior knowledge of the assassination of Haniyeh that took place in Tehran. “Intelligence services interact among them, but Israel would never tell an ally, no matter how close, about a planned assassination,” he said.
US support ‘means Israeli government can do whatever it wants’
We have had two assassinations of senior leaders within 48 hours and in addition to the killing of two journalists, and for some reason, [White House National Security Adviser Kirby] is not prepared for the press conference. He’s telling us that it’s complicated and for us not to worry because things can still happen if the parties can hash out the details.
If the Israeli minister of defense and the Israeli minister of security were assassinated, would he be saying the same thing? It’s not serious to be approaching the way Israel is escalating not only the war in Gaza, but also in Lebanon, by saying things like, “Don’t worry, there’s still a chance for a ceasefire, it’s not a problem.”
We can see that Israel is using America’s complicity in order to expand the war. As we’ve heard from US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin out of the Philippines, saying, “We will continue to defend Israel.” That sends a message to the Netanyahu government that you can kill leaders, you can escalate the war, you can kill journalists, you can invade countries, and, we, the US, will still come to your defence. It means the Israeli government can do whatever it wants.
