It’s safe to say that US President Joe Biden has now been completely bulldozed by his old pal Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, just days after his address in Congress that was boycotted by about half the lawmakers across both Caucuses. The threat of a wider conflict in the Middle East has now become a very real possibility.

Wednesday morning, we woke up to the news of the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas based in Qatar, who was killed in an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps guesthouse in Tehran where he was staying after attending the inauguration of President Masoud Pezeshkian of Iran.

Widely believed to be carried out by Israel, Haniyeh was not only the key Hamas negotiator in the ongoing negotiations to secure a ceasefire, but also considered the pragmatic and moderate face of Hamas, and belonging to the political, not military wing.

It was a particularly audacious move at a time when foreign dignitaries from over 80 countries were present and security was tight.

The message was obvious. The assassins were also reminding Iran’s new leaders that they, too, were within reach.

Furthermore, a strike on Iranian sovereign territory at the time of a presidential inauguration is a very outright dog-whistle at Iran, with the intention of setting off a larger Middle East conflict.

Trouble in (genocidal) paradise?

Denunciations by world leaders quickly followed.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed revenge, stating, “The criminal and terrorist Zionist regime martyred our dear guest in our house and made us bereaved,” he said in a statement on Wednesday. “It also prepared the ground for a harsh punishment for itself.”

“Political assassinations and continued targeting of civilians in Gaza while talks continue leads us to ask, how can mediation succeed when one party assassinates the negotiator on the other side?” Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani wrote on X.

The Turkish foreign ministry said, “Once again the (Benjamin) Netanyahu government has shown that it has no intention of achieving peace.”

Egypt’s foreign ministry issued a statement, saying, “The coincidence of this regional escalation with the lack of progress in the ceasefire negotiations in Gaza increases the complexity of the situation and indicates the absence of Israeli political will to calm it down.”

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said, “This madness of the Israeli Zionist regime going after people in their bedrooms and torturing people and thinking they can end the war and aggression in this manner.

“This was a murder of the most heinous kind, plainly designed to derail ongoing talks aimed at ending the carnage in Gaza.”

China “firmly” opposed and condemned the assassination.

Middle East analysts and experts also warned of a larger conflict.

Author Vali Nasr wrote on X, “Israel’s two assassinations, regardless of the reason behind them were done in deliberately provocative manner – designed to invite escalatory retaliation. Unable or unwilling to restrain Israel, US is sleepwalking into a larger war that it doesn’t want.”

Caretaker Foreign Minister of Lebanon Abdallah Rashid Bou Habib surmised that Netanyahu is likely delaying the peace process until after the US elections in November.

All valid assessments.

If the Palestinian cause isn’t resolved now, then it never will

The United States eventually issued a statement that it had no prior warning of the operation. Pentagon and military officials claimed they also were stunned.

But is that really possible, considering it required acute intelligence capacity in order to evade Iran’s Revolutionary Guard in such a manner.

Pertinent to note here, in 2020 a top Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was assassinated by a Mossad team through a self-destructing AI weapon that required no on-site operatives.

Haniyeh’s killing followed a day after the strike in Beirut that killed Hezbollah official Fuad Shukr, and months following the helicopter crash of Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi on the border of Azerbaijan. I’m not sure that was an accident anymore.

The bomb that killed Haniyeh was planted in the guest house months ago.

Pakistan says concerned with ‘growing Israeli adventurism’

Suffice to say, ceasefire negotiations may see setback in the short and medium term, as Hamas recovers and recalibrates.

Ironically, the killing of officials trying to secure peace processes in Gaza, is an old Israeli practice (Ahmed Jabari, Abdel Aziz al-Ratinsi).

The current provocation in Tehran has the potential to spark a regional war involving many actors in the Middle East, including the Gulf states, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon as well as the Houthis in Yemen.

It has the potential to collapse global financial markets and drive up the price of oil, disrupt industry, trade and travel routes, and pull the United States – in an election year – into a conflict they claim they do not want.

Calls for revenge at Iran funeral for Hamas chief Haniyeh

Unless the US and its allies respond with a hard no to the unfettered supply of weapons to Israel and blanket impunity, no ceasefire nor a two-state solution will see light of day.

What would have served the region and Israel best were to continue with ceasefire negotiations and bring an end to the carnage that has so far left 40,000 dead in Gaza along with a dire humanitarian crisis.

Instead, we are now faced with the very real possibility that Iran will take the final step toward building an actual nuclear weapon.

President Biden, who was maybe hoping for a ceasefire as part of his lasting legacy and swan song, may find his hopes dashed, and his policy on Gaza a moral and strategic failure.

The last few days have more or less “violated the informal rules of escalation that has kept the Middle East from morphing into a larger conflagration”, as noted by Bou Habib.

Will Iran continue its shadow war with Israel or strike overtly?

Will it declare an all-out war?

“Give us the tools and we’ll finish the job,” demanded Netanyahu boldly in Congress, perhaps ominously and narcissistically warning of more to come.

Or was it the green light he came for?

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