(Ken Silva, Headline USA) The Biden administration has insisted that the Israel-Iran conflict has yet to spill into a wider regional conflict, but an analysis from The Intercept found that the simmering war already involves at least 16 countries.
The countries involved so far are: Israel, Iran, the U.S., the UK, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman, Djibouti and Lebanon
According to The Intercept, the U.S. launched flew aircraft and air defense missiles from at least eight countries in the region. Iran and its proxies, for their part, fired weapons from Iraq, Syria, and Yemen.
Additionally, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Djabouti have been used as ports by the U.S. Navy, while Lebanon has been driven into the war via attacks between Hezbollah and Israel.
However, “Despite this unambiguous regional network, and even after Israel’s attack on Iran’s embassy in Syria earlier this month, the Biden administration has consistently denied that the Hamas war has spread beyond Gaza,” The Intercept noted.
“It is a policy stance—and a deception—that has held since Hamas’s October 7 attack.”
The war could spread farther soon. Axios reported on Monday that Israel told Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin that it has no choice but to respond to Iran’s missile and drone attack, which came in retaliation for Israel’s bombing of Iran’s consulate in Damascus—as noted by antiwar.com’s Dave DeCamp.
“Israeli TV reported on Monday that the Israeli War Cabinet convened again and agreed to respond to the Iranian attack ‘clearly and forcefully,’ but there are no details on what the response would look like,” DeCamp wrote Tuesday.
“The report said the attack would be designed to send the message that Israel will ‘not allow an attack of that magnitude against it to pass without a reaction.’”
Austin reportedly told Gallant that the US “does not seek escalation,” but that the US will “continue to defend Israel.”
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
