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Analysts believe that the United States is trying to hold more than one stick in the middle so that it continues to direct strikes at the factions that attack its forces in the region on the one hand and prevent the expansion of the war on the other hand, stressing that the expected exchange deal between the Palestinian resistance and Israel will be pivotal for the entire region.

European Union foreign policy official Josep Borrell had warned that the Middle East region was in a state of turmoil and that it might explode at any moment, stressing the difficulty of predicting what would happen if the war in the Gaza Strip did not stop.

The United States directed strikes at militias allied with Iran in Syria and Iraq, and said it would continue this operation in response to the targeting of its forces on the Syrian-Jordanian border a week ago.

Dr. Liqaa Makki, a researcher at the Al Jazeera Center for Political Studies, believes that these strikes come within the framework of harsh messages between the United States and Iran, as Tehran wants to be present in the ongoing negotiations to end the war in Gaza, while Washington rejects this matter.

Comprehensive settlement or total war

During his participation in the program “Gaza... What Next?”, Makki said that the United States is not interested in beheading the factions allied with Iran, but rather in liquidating the Palestinian resistance as part of any deal to end the war, even if it did not announce this explicitly.

Hence, the real test now - in Makki’s opinion - relates to the extent to which the Iranians accept being removed from the current arrangements regarding Gaza, which will end in a comprehensive settlement or a comprehensive war.

The same opinion was held by the expert in American affairs and international relations, Khaled Al-Taarani, who said that Washington and Tehran are keen not to expand the scope of the war, but he confirms that the United States in general did not rise to the level of the tsunami caused by the Al-Aqsa Flood operation in the region.

Instead of America moving diplomatically to deal with the fact that Israel has lost significant international support in favor of the Palestinians, it is still limiting all negotiations to the issue of restoring Israeli detainees, according to Al-Taraani.

Al-Tarani believes that Israel is no longer fighting against the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), but rather “is waging a global war to defend its narrative and the legitimacy of its existence.”

However, the Joe Biden administration - as Al-Taraani says - “still refuses to stop the fighting or acknowledge the fall of civilian martyrs in Gaza and limits all its efforts to the issue of prisoners in search of a short-term achievement.”

Therefore, the last word on the potential deal will go to both sides of the conflict, says Makki, who stressed that all countries in the region are trying to prevent the expansion of the confrontation.

Israel wants to destroy the region

Makki believes that Israel benefits from any American confrontation with any party that supports the Palestinian resistance because it wants to involve the United States and the West in a broader war in the region to cover up its defeat in Gaza on the one hand, and to destroy all the countries of the region while they are standing on their feet on the other hand.

Accordingly, the coming period may witness an escalation with the Lebanese Hezbollah, says Makki, stressing that escaping forward "is one of the solutions for Benjamin Netanyahu's government to cover up its failure in Gaza."

Al-Taraani rules out an escalation with Hezbollah because the latter possesses missiles that are more accurate and advanced than those possessed by Hamas, and thus will strike the strategic depth of Israel, which threatens its crumbling economy with further collapse, in addition to the fact that Lebanon itself may collapse completely due to its involvement in a major war, according to him.

Therefore, Al-Taraani does not believe that America or Israel wants to expand the war in Lebanon, even if they want to divert attention from the genocide crimes being committed in Gaza.

Given all these complications, Makki believes that the deal currently being worked on “needs a massive surgical operation because Israel, in its current state, will never agree to Hamas’ conditions, and therefore Washington must pressure Netanyahu’s right-wing government to accept part of all of these legitimate conditions.”

Makki concluded that US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken may put pressure on Israel. On some matters during his upcoming visit, but what is certain - in his opinion - is that Washington “does not want an end to the war before at least determining the strength of Hamas, which means that the matter is not entirely related to Israel.”

Source: Al Jazeera