US top general says tensions in Middle East have 'somewhat' eased amid new Iranian threats

Concerns over an all-out war between Israel, Hezbollah and Iran have eased, according to comments made by U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. to Reuters on Monday, but statements issued by Jerusalem and Tehran suggest otherwise. 

Brown met with top Israeli officials in Tel Aviv to discuss ongoing security issues facing Jerusalem just one day after the Israel Defense Forces and Hezbollah exchanged fire on Sunday – during which hundreds of rockets and drones were fired by the terrorist group at northern Israeli military positions.

Jerusalem said it too had fired a series of strikes on Hezbollah strongholds after 100 warplanes took to the sky to preemptively hit thousands of rocket launchers reportedly positioned to fire upon Israel.

Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is greeted at Ben Gurion International Airport outside Tel Aviv, Israel, Aug. 26, 2024. (Reuters/Phil Stewart)

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Despite the heavy fire that was exchanged, relatively few deaths were reported, with three Hezbollah militants and one Israeli soldier killed in the day’s events, which concluded by mid-morning Sunday. 

When asked if the threat of a large-scale war between Israel and Hezbollah – which is backed by Iran – had abated, Brown replied, "Somewhat, yes."

Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah said the Sunday operation was ordered in response to the killing of Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr at the end of July, reported Al Jazeera. 

But the terror group and Iran have pledged retaliation for one other killing that also occurred late last month when Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated while visiting Tehran, though Israel has never claimed credit for the attack.

"You had two things you knew were going to happen," Brown told reporters in detailing the two acts of revenge pledged by the Israeli adversaries. "One's already happened. Now it depends on how the second is going to play out."

A Hezbollah UAV is intercepted by Israeli air forces over north Israel on Aug. 25, 2024. (Jalaa Marey/AFP via Getty Images)

"How Iran responds will dictate how Israel responds, which will dictate whether there is going to be a broader conflict or not," Brown added. 

Brown’s cautious optimism that a broader conflict had so far been avoided remains at odds with how Israel and Iran are viewing the current tensions.

Iran’s chief of staff of the armed forces, Maj. Gen. Mohammad Bagheri, responded to the Sunday exchange of fire and warned that "revenge against the Israeli entity is inevitable" following the death of Haniyeh. 

Iranians burn a representation of the Israeli flag during the funeral ceremony of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on Aug. 1, 2024, in Tehran. (Majid Saeedi/Getty Images)

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"What we witnessed yesterday is only part of that revenge," he confirmed, according to a report by the Arab news outlet Al Mayadeen English. "[Iran] will decide how and when to take revenge and will not fall into the trap of media provocations initiated by the enemies."

Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Monday also warned that "Iran’s aggression has reached an all-time high" and said Israel and the U.S. must expand their joint defenses.

Gallant further emphasized the threat Iran poses in its continued pursuit of developing nuclear capabilities, adding that Jerusalem and Washington must work to stop Tehran’s military from gaining nuclear weapons. 

On Tuesday, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said there were no "barriers" in communicating with the "enemy," which some news outlets interpreted as a potential signal that Tehran may once again engage in nuclear talks with the West. 

"We do not have to pin our hope to the enemy. For our plans, we should not wait for approval by the enemies," Khamenei said, according to The Associated Press. "It is not contradictory to engage the same enemy in some places, there’s no barrier."

The AP report said this rhetoric echoed comments made in the lead-up to the 2015 deal made between Iran, the U.S. and other Western nations.

But Khamenei also warned that "the enemy" could not be trusted. 

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei leads a prayer over the coffins of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and his bodyguard, who were killed in an assassination blamed on Israel. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)

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Talks with Iran over its nuclear development collapsed after the U.S. withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) under the Trump administration in 2018 – a move Tehran has since claimed voided their commitments to the agreement.

The U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said in June that Iran is not believed to possess nuclear weapon capabilities, though it has enriched uranium to levels just short of weapons-grade standards.

While any new deal with Iran appears unlikely, another "historic" deal between the U.S. and a Middle Eastern nation, Saudi Arabia, may be on the horizon, Michael Ratney, the U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, said Monday. 

"While we came very close and are very close on very important elements of this agreement, it is important that we finalize all of it together, and with that we would have a history-making agreement between the U.S. and Saudi," he told Saudi news outlet Asharq Al-Awsat, according to a translation reported by Al Arabiya English.

Ratney said the agreement would encompass several issues like bolstering the strategic partnership between Washington and Riyadh, enhancing military agreements and strengthening economic ties.

But it also includes efforts to normalize ties between Saudi Arabia and Israel – a push first launched throughout the Middle East under the Trump administration’s Abraham Accords. 

This is a locator map for the Gulf Cooperation Council member states: Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait and United Arab Emirates.

Washington, under both the Trump and Biden administrations, has held the belief that improving Israel’s ties in the Middle East could better secure it from terrorist organizations as well as the Iranian regime – which is often at loggerheads with several Sunni nations. 

"We are in a complicated region and there are a lot of complexities to the agreement itself, but we will do it as quickly as possible," Ratney reportedly said.

The U.S. ambassador said the Biden administration and Riyadh support the establishment of a two-state solution when it comes to stopping the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – though Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly made it clear he does not support Palestinian statehood. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint meeting of Congress at the U.S. Capitol on July 24, 2024. (Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)

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"We fundamentally believe that Palestinian statehood needs to come through a political process, through negotiations between the parties, not through any other means," Ratney said. 

"In the meantime, the deep priority is to stop the violence in Gaza, to stop the misery of the people of Gaza, to move forward with our efforts toward a cease-fire, to release Israeli hostages, and to end this conflict to find ways to deliver much-needed humanitarian assistance in Gaza," he added.