With Middle East on edge, US sends warships but launches diplomatic offensive to prevent escalation & save hostage negotiations

With Israel bracing for potential retaliation from Iran and its proxies after two assassinations in Beirut and Tehran, the United States is scrambling forces to prepare for an escalation that threatens to engulf the Middle East.

At the same time, the U.S. is launching a diplomatic offensive aimed at preventing a regional conflict and returning Israel and Hamas to the negotiating table regarding a hostage release and ceasefire deal.

A U.S. Pentagon official told the Washington Post on Thursday that at least 12 American warships were concentrated in the eastern Mediterranean and the Arab Gulf at the moment. This includes the carrier strike group of the USS Theodore Roosevelt, and several destroyers and other vessels, some of which were transferred there from the U.S.-led task force defending shipping lanes against attacks by the Yemeni Houthi terrorists in the Red Sea.

The U.S. was reportedly informed beforehand of the Israeli strike in Beirut that killed Hezbollah’s military chief Fuad Shukr. U.S. officials told Politico that while the U.S. saw the strike as a legitimate response to the Majdal Shams attack, the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran came as a surprise.

U.S. State Secretary Antony Blinken confirmed this on Thursday, saying: “This is something we were not aware of or involved in.” 

The Biden administration has since launched a diplomatic offensive to lessen the fall-out of the surprise assassination in Iran’s capital, with the ultimate goal of resuming hostage deal negotiations between Israel and Hamas.

According to Ynet News, Israel has transferred a message to Iran’s main proxy Hezbollah through Western and regional officials, stressing that the IDF was only targeting military targets and advising Hezbollah to do the same. A massive attack on civilians would mean all-out war, the Israeli officials emphasized.

“Everyone since last night is putting pressure on Tehran to not respond and to contain this,” a Western diplomat told the Financial Times. According to the newspaper, Western diplomats were holding urgent discussions to prevent a larger war.

The same report noted that Enrique Mora, chief of staff to the European Union’s senior diplomat, Josep Borrell, held talks in Tehran on Wednesday, while the Biden administration’s senior Middle East envoy, Brett McGurk, was in Saudi Arabia.

The U.S. continues to view a hostage release and truce deal as the best way to end Israel’s conflict with both Hamas and Hezbollah, and to restabilize the region after nearly 10 months of war.

Speaking with The Wall Street Journal, U.S. officials said they were caught off guard by the killing of Haniyeh, which they said has made it more difficult to achieve a ceasefire, though negotiations have not been entirely derailed.

U.S. National Security Council Spokesman John Kirby said reaching a deal “was always complicated. It remains complicated,” he said. “We don’t believe escalation is inevitable.”

Another official said that discussions restarted immediately following the strike in Tehran to salvage a deal. Those discussions involved representatives from Israel, Qatar, Iraq and Saudi Arabia.

On Thursday, Blinken warned that the Middle East was on a path “toward more conflict, more violence, more suffering, more insecurity, and it is crucial that we break this cycle.”

“That starts with a ceasefire that we’ve been working on,” he said during a visit to Mongolia.

“And to get there, it also first requires all parties to talk, to stop taking any escalatory actions. It requires them to find reasons to come to an agreement.”