The US is preparing to play Air Force for Israel's skies as it deploys a dozen F-22 stealth raptor jets to the Middle East region. This change in 'force posture' was not debated in Congress (nor is it even really being debated on the mainstream networks), despite that clearly US service members could soon find themselves in the middle of a war between Iran and Israel.
The White House has issued a fresh warning to Tehran on Thursday as it is said to still be gearing up for a strike on Israel in retaliation for the July 31st killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh at a residence in Tehran. The new warning from Washington includes both negative economic consequences and threats of destabilizing actions directed against the newly elected government of Masoud Pezeshkian.
"The United States has sent clear messaging to Iran that the risk of a major escalation if they do a significant retaliatory attack against Israel is extremely high," a US admin official told The Wall Street Journal.
The official further said that Tehran has been put on notice over "a serious risk of consequences for Iran’s economy and the stability of its newly elected government if it goes down that path."
Is this a threat of regime change? To the ears of Iranian officials, it will sure sound like it given the country on its eastern border and the country on its western border were both regime-changed by Washington.
Currently, the consensus among US national security officials is that Hezbollah is likely to play a much bigger and coordinated role in any potential Iranian ballistic missile and drone attack on Israel:
Officials also don’t know for sure whether Hezbollah plans to attack at the same time in a coordinated offensive with Iran or separately. Hezbollah has a large arsenal of missiles that can reach Israel and the concern is that the group and Iran might attack at the same time to try to overwhelm Israel’s missile defenses.
"Last time we got more of a heads up, and this time people are making their best guesses," said a third U.S. official.
But while the US mainstream media narrative remains that it is exclusively Iran and its regional allies that are the regional 'aggressors' against Israel and the US, the fact remains that it is Israel which has attacked close Tehran ally Syria literally hundreds of times over the past years.
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And more recently, Israel attacked the Iranian embassy in Damascus (the aftermath which is pictured above). Nation-states did not attack each other's embassies even during World Wars I and II, and the strike on the diplomatic complex was unprecedented in history as an intentional act prior to Israel's April 1st operation in the Syrian capital.
