Indeed, within hours, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, declared his intention to attack Israel. The almost certain escalation from the Haniyeh assassination signals a fundamental flaw in President Biden’s Gaza policy: the hope that the Gaza war could be contained to Gaza. But for months, the war has already been spreading — to Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and now, to Iran. Some in the U.S. foreign policy establishment argue that since neither the United States nor Iran desires full-scale war, cooler heads will prevail. The current precarious moment is the result of a series of false assumptions that U.S. policy was built on since well before the war began.

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Persons: Ismail Haniyeh, Israel —, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Israel, Biden’s Locations: Tehran, Gaza, Biden’s Gaza, Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran, U.S, United States, Israel, Saudi Arabia