“The Israelis don’t want to get into a spiraling tit-for-tat confrontation with Iran, especially given that they are already fighting one war in Gaza and giving it all they’ve got, so that may create some room for prudence,” says Benjamin Friedman, policy director at Defense Priorities, a Washington think tank promoting U.S. foreign policy focused on national security interests.
“They may have to say they’re going to respond, but then they might proceed with some of the same low-level actions they’ve carried out against Iran for years,” he says – such as targeting Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officers and assassinating Iranian nuclear scientists.
“I would have preferred that the president make this conditional support clearer back in the bear-hug days” following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack. Now an unwillingness to define the limits of U.S. support earlier, he adds, could leave Israel thinking that in the end it will have that “ironclad” support no matter how it responds to Iran.
Read article in Christian Science Monitor
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