US still seeking to determine Iran’s connection to Israel attack

The extraordinary and sudden Hamas attack on Israel – which has been compared to the September 11 attacks in the United States, and in terms of per capita casualties was far more bloody – falls into the category of tragedies that could change the world.

Aside from the awful human toll – now also being felt by Palestinian civilians in Gaza, where hundreds have perished in the initial Israel reprisal attacks on the infrastructure of Hamas – the onslaught will have far-reaching strategic consequences that will be felt in the US.

However, there’s no denying Iran’s history of aiding Hamas, officials said.

“Of course Iran is in the picture,” one US official told CNN. “They’ve provided support for years to Hamas and Hezbollah.”

In the immediate aftermath of the attack, senior US officials maintained that it was too early to determine whether Iran had any direct role in planning and supporting Hamas’ attack. “It is early” and a matter of direct interest to determine, one senior official said.

But officials are beginning to go as far as to say that Iran’s well-established connections to Hamas would mean it is likely Iran helped train and finance efforts that led to this weekend’s attack.

“Iran’s close ties to Hamas and financial and operational support make it likely they had a role in this,” one Democratic senator, who was expected to receive a classified briefing on Monday, told CNN.

If evidence is found that Iran directly plotted the attack with Hamas, there will be huge pressure on the Israelis to respond by directly confronting the Islamic Republic, at the risk of sparking a wider regional conflagration that could draw in the United States.

But for now, US officials say there is no intelligence making the direct connection.

Asked during a briefing with House leadership Sunday evening whether there was any indication that Iran had direct involvement, acting Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland said: “We have not found that connection, but that doesn’t mean we won’t.”

According to a person familiar with the call, Nuland noted that Iran has historically provided weapons to Hamas but US officials are looking for a more specific connection.

One congressional source said that given the sophistication of the attack, Iran would have had a role, since Hamas does not have the ability to buy weapons at this scale. The question now: To what extent Iran played a role.

The attacks and their fallout are also almost certain to disrupt the effort, in which the US is a key player, to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia and allied Arab states. Such an agreement would fundamentally reshape the region and further isolate Iran – a logical reason why it could have had an interest in perpetrating the Hamas assault. US officials are still trying to establish how, if at all, Iran was involved.

The horror in Israel presents Biden with another fearsome foreign policy crisis as he contemplates his reelection bid – alongside the war in Ukraine and a rising confrontation with China.

It comes at a moment of political vulnerability for the administration as it seeks to explain why it made a deal to release US prisoners from Iran that resulted in the release of $6 billion in frozen Iranian funds. The Iranian government can use the funds only to buy humanitarian and medical supplies. The deal took place far too recently for such money to be used to finance this attack. But such subtleties don’t count for much in an election year, as multiple Republican presidential candidates accused the president of funding Iranian terror.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday tried to defuse the political impact of the agreement. “Not a single dollar has been spent from that account. And, again, the account is closely regulated by the US Treasury Department, so it can only be used for things like food, medicine, medical equipment,” he insisted on “State of the Union.”

But, in a political sense, it only matters that enough Americans believe what the Republicans are saying is true.

GOP hopeful Nikki Haley, a former US ambassador to the United Nations, for instance, implied Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that funds that Iran may not have to spend on medicine because of the hostage deal could now be spent on terror.

“Secretary Blinken is just wrong to imply that this money is not being moved around as we speak,” Haley said, although her argument is undercut by the fact that Iran’s clerical regime has rarely seemed to prioritize the humanitarian needs of its people while building up a huge state military complex.

Another 2024 candidate, GOP Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, went even further, accusing Biden – who has been one of the strongest Washington supporters of Israel in half a century in politics – of being “complicit” in the attacks.

Source: AP News