Vali Nasr
The volley of attacks and counterattacks between Iran and Israel in the first two weeks of April drastically changed the strategic landscape in the Middle East. On April 1, an Israeli airstrike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus killed seven Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders, including two generals. Two weeks later, Iran retaliated with a barrage of drones and missiles, almost all of which were intercepted. Israel swiftly responded with its own drone and missile attack on an airbase in Iran. The exchange brought the shadow war the two countries have been fighting for more than a decade into the open.
It is now clear that the spiraling rivalry between Iran and Israel will shape regional security and drive Middle East politics for the foreseeable future. Each views the other as an arch enemy that it must defeat by military means. Left unchecked, their dangerous competition will destabilize the region, and it could ultimately trigger a conflict that drags the United States into a costly war. It now falls on Washington to craft a diplomatic strategy to calm the escalatory forces that precipitated a direct confrontation between Iran and Israel in April—and could do so again.
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