Antony Blinken heads to Middle East in firefight mode as risk of escalation grows
Blinken will be joined on his trip with a senior adviser to President Joe Biden - a "Team America" tailored to shifting circumstances.
Friday 5 January 2024 07:01, UK
'The risk is real and concern is high.'
That's how Matthew Miller put it, spokesman for the State Department, when asked about a spread of the Israel/Hamas conflict.
As his boss boards a plane back to the Middle East, the sentiment sounds like a drum beat, ever louder.
On Antony Blinken's fourth trip to the war zone since 7 October 2023, the risk of escalation appears more evident than it was on journeys one to three.
It is increasingly tense in the tinderbox region.
Hezbollah is vowing "response and punishment" for an Israeli killing of a senior Hamas official in Beirut.
There was Thursday's US drone strike in Baghdad, targeting Iran-backed militants, which the Iraqi government called a "flagrant violation of the sovereignty and security of Iraq".
Houthi rebels are on their last warning - by the US and others - against attacks on commercial shipping, a threat which carries the threat of lethal force as a next step.
Then there was the terror attack, claimed by Islamic State, that killed dozens in Iran.
They are deadly events that involve different players, but which all raise tension and feed the potential for widening conflict.
Blinken's message is that escalation is in no one's interests.
Certainly, it won't further his stated priorities on this diplomatic round, which include increasing humanitarian assistance to Gaza and planning a "next phase" with Israel that involves military action of lower intensity.
They are priorities that need a time and space not afforded by military conflagration, a point not lost on the Americans.
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Blinken will be joined on his trip by Amos Hochstein, a senior adviser to President Joe Biden, who travels with the specific brief of calming acute tensions between Israel and Hezbollah.
They are diplomats paired in firefight mode - a "Team America" tailored to shifting circumstances.
Read more:
How tentacles of Gaza war could entangle Middle East in an even more complicated conflict
US diplomacy and defence assets deployed since 7 October have helped to contain conflict, geographically.
It has, in turn, lengthened the road for Biden in his efforts to broker a political endgame - with the fog of war as a hazard ahead.