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A U.S.-Iranian Miscalculation Could Lead to a Larger War, Officials Say

By Helene Cooper, Eric Schmitt and Julian E. Barnes

The New York Times: Neither Washington nor Tehran wants the conflict in the Gaza Strip to trigger a wider war in the region, officials in both capitals say.

But in the seven weeks since the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel, Iranian-backed militias have launched more than 70 rocket and drone attacks against U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria. The Pentagon, for its part, has responded with four rounds of airstrikes, killing as many as 15 people, U.S. officials say.

National security officials fear a miscalculation amid tit-for-tat attacks, combined with each side’s belief that the other does not want a larger fight, could trigger exactly that: a regional conflict, just two years after the United States ended 20 years of war in the Middle East and South Asia.

So far, none of the U.S. reprisal attacks have provoked an escalation, even the one last week in Iraq that killed several militants with Kataib Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed group. The Pentagon said on Tuesday that the attacks had subsided at least temporarily — the most recent being on Nov. 23, the day before an operational pause in the Gaza war began.

But American military commanders and intelligence agencies continue to closely watch Iran as well as the groups it supports, which include Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and militias in Iraq and Syria. A Navy warship in the southern Red Sea on Wednesday shot down a drone fired from Yemen that a U.S. military official said posed a threat to the ship.

“The problem with how people have been looking at this is that we’ve only been thinking about a short war” in Gaza, said Vali Nasr, an Iran expert and professor of international affairs and Middle East studies at Johns Hopkins University.

But, he said, Iran and Hezbollah believe that once Israel is done with Hamas, it will turn its attention to them.

“If the United States is not careful, Gaza is only the beginning of something much, much bigger,” Mr. Nasr said.

Defense officials believe that Iran is using the militia attacks to warn the United States of what would happen to American troops and interests in the region if Israel broadens its campaign to encompass Hezbollah or if Israel targets Iran’s nuclear program, as it has in the past.

Israel and Hezbollah have clashed repeatedly along Israel’s northern border with Lebanon since the war began. One U.S. official said the Biden administration wanted to see Israel “lean away” from the skirmishes. But the official did not elaborate on what the administration was doing to keep Israel from opening a two-front war.

The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations with Israeli officials.

Since the early days of the conflict, Tehran and Washington have exchanged multiple messages saying that neither side wants to escalate the war, Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amir Abdollahian, said in an interview.

“We understand the U.S. does not want the war to spread, but we think the U.S. wants the war to intensify,” Mr. Amir Abdollahian said. “If the U.S. continues its military, political and financial support of Israel and helps manage Israel’s military attacks on Palestinian civilians, then it must face its consequences.” >>>