US President Joe Biden expressed hope Saturday that the latest Israeli airstrikes on Iran marked the end of a period of escalation in the Middle East.
“It looks like they didn’t hit anything other than military targets. My hope is this is the end,” he told reporters in Philadelphia, noting that he spent time earlier Saturday being briefed by the intelligence community.
The president said he did receive a heads up ahead of the Israeli strikes. Biden administration officials have said the US was not directly involved with the attack, but had been consulting closely with Israel.
Before this weekend’s strikes, Biden had “encouraged” Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to design a retaliatory attack against Iran that would “deter future attacks against Israel,” a senior US administration official said.
American officials had expected Israel to retaliate against Iran some time before November 5, a timeline that would thrust the growing volatility in the Middle East squarely into public view within days of the American presidential election.
What was ultimately a highly calculated Israeli response shows that the US can still influence Israel’s actions in the region “when it wants to,” geopolitical analyst H. A. Hellyer told CNN.
“I think that the engagement of the US in this regard was significant, but frankly, it also shows when the US wants to push Israel to modify its behavior, it can do so,” he continued. “And as of yet, what we’ve seen is really unbridled for Israel in terms of the war in Gaza — and that sort of pressure (could) be welcomed there.”
CNN’s Catherine Nicholls contributed to this post.