Iran told US it did not want Israel-Hamas war to escalate

Financial Times- Nov 17th 2023

Iran’s top diplomat has revealed that Tehran told the US through back channels that it did not want the Israel-Hamas war to spread further, but also warned Washington that regional conflict could be unavoidable if Israeli attacks on Gaza continue. “Over the past 40 days, messages have been exchanged between Iran and the US, via the US interests section at the Swiss embassy in Tehran,” foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said in an interview, while ruling out the possibility of direct talks between the two foes. “In response to the US,” he added, “we said that Iran does not want the war to spread, but due to the approach adopted by the US and Israel in the region, if the crimes against the people of Gaza and the West Bank are not stopped, any possibility could be considered, and a wider conflict could prove inevitable.” Iran, the main supporter of anti-Israel Islamist militants in the region, has said it was not informed in advance of Hamas’s devastating attack on Israel on October 7 — a position that US officials have confirmed.

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But western states hold Iran responsible for its extensive support for “resistance” groups against the Jewish state — including Hamas and Lebanon’s Hizbollah — which Iran sees as an essential pillar of its security strategy.

Iran’s foreign minister has toured the region since the Gaza war began, a flurry of diplomacy that has taken him to Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. He has also met Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Doha and Hizbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Amirabdollahian maintained that Hizbollah and other Islamist militants in Palestine, Iraq, Syria and Yemen were not Iran’s proxy forces, saying each had an independent political identity. But he warned that these groups “are not indifferent towards the killing of their Muslim and Arab peers in Palestine”. In western capitals, there are concerns that Iran could push its proxy forces, notably Hizbollah — the most powerful of the so-called “axis of resistance” — to escalate hostilities in the region. The US has built up its military presence in the region over the past month, dispatching two carrier strike groups to act as a deterrent. Amirabdollahian said the US had not threatened that Iran could be hit if Hizbollah launched an all-out assault on Israel. However, he accused Washington of inviting Tehran “to exercise restraint” while it was itself escalating the war in Gaza with massive support for Israel.

He said the US’s messages to Hizbollah similarly urging restraint “would fail to make the resistance group cautious in its decision-making”. “Our military officials are of the opinion that the deployment of US aircraft carriers near our region, which makes them accessible, is not a strong point for the US. Rather, it makes them more vulnerable to possible strikes,” Amirabdollahian said. “The war has already expanded in the region,” he added. “The fact that the Yemeni army [Iran-backed Houthi movement] . . . attacks the occupied lands with missiles and drones means the war has begun to expand. The fact that Hizbollah is fighting with a third of the Israeli army shows the war has expanded.” Gaza, home to 2.3mn people, has been enduring a devastating humanitarian crisis since Israel launched its offensive in response to Hamas’ assault on October 7. Iran has been calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. But Iranian analysts in Tehran have noted that the war has already created diplomatic opportunities for the country, helping to lessen its political isolation abroad. The Islamic republic has seized the moment to narrow the gap with Arab and regional leaders, whose pro-Palestinian positions have shifted closer to Iran’s since the war began. Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi travelled to Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh at the weekend and met Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the first such visit by an Iranian president in more than a decade.