The United States’ top general on Monday warned Iran not to get involved in the crisis in Israel and said he did not want the conflict to the broaden, as Lebanese armed group Hezbollah fired a salvo of rockets onto northern Israel
The White House earlier on Monday said that Iran was complicit even though the United States has no intelligence or evidence that points to Iran’s direct participation in attacks in Israel by Palestinian Islamist group Hamas.
Asked what his message for Iran was, General Charles Q. Brown, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said: “Not to get involved.”
Israeli shelling on Lebanon killed at least three Hezbollah militants on Monday, and Israel said one of its officers was killed during an earlier cross-border raid claimed by Palestinians in Lebanon.
The cross-border violence marked a significant expansion of a conflict between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza to the Israeli-Lebanese border further north.
This is a pretty empty threat. Realistically speaking the US cannot escalate without facing huge domestic backlash. Public support for US involvement in a new war in a is nonexistent, given the abject an expensive failures of the recent afghan and iraqi wars.
Add the fact that any iranian involvement would go through hezbollah, gives both the us government and iran a way to plausibly deny iranian involvement. The US will do nothing. They might send some troop to “support” israel. They already have. Which is a token gesture at best.
Public support for a prolonged engagement is likely low. Minimal boots on the ground style bomb the crap out of you is probably always acceptable though.
When has that ever stopped a nation from going to war? We all know how easy it is to shift public opinion if the Government, any Government, really wants to do something.
WWI - Lusitania, WWII - Pearl Harbor, Vietnam - Gulf of Tonkin, Gulf War I - Kuwait / Oil, GWoT - Twin Towers
As history shows they will do what they choose and it could be anything from scathing press releases to loaded bombers. They obviously don’t want to get directly involved in a new ME crisis right now but that doesn’t mean they won’t.
It wouldn’t surprise me terribly if it came to pass that the US populace was ready for blood over this. Nobody in my circle is down to get involved but god only knows what is going through the head of the average person in this country.
Deep in the hangover from the abject failure of the Iraq war, there were goofballs singing “bomb bomb Iran”. We are a warmongering people.