• 🤖 I’m a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles:

    Click here to see the summary

    The first direct attack by a state military against Israel since Iraq’s Scud missile launches during 1991’s Gulf War, the Iranian salvo — slow, deliberate, and forewarned — appeared calculated not to escalate the situation.

    A report by NBC News on the morning after Iran’s strikes quoted three individuals close to Joe Biden as saying that the president “privately expressed concern that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to drag Washington into a broader conflict.”

    There have been sudden U.S. shifts on the war in Gaza, and Biden apparently rejected further Israeli strikes against Iran, but American officials including the president have by and large struck a tone of total, unflinching support for Israel.

    The U.S. has material incentives to draw down its focus on the Middle East and does not want to fight another major war in the region, but for Israel and for Netanyahu personally, there are strong reasons to start a direct confrontation with Iran and its allies.

    Since the start of its post-October 7 assault on Gaza, Israeli civilians have mostly abandoned the northern area of the country due to the nearby presence, across the Lebanese border, of fighters from the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah.

    At a moment when the U.S. is running short of munitions and funding to support Ukraine and is nervously eyeing China’s military buildup in east Asia, it is hard to think of worse timing for such a conflict, regardless of how opportune it may be for Israel.


    Saved 77% of original text.