Blinken dispatched to Middle East to prevent current Israel-Hamas war from spreading to other fronts

The Biden administration sent U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to the Middle East with the overall mission to prevent the Hamas-initiated war against Israel from escalating into a full-fledged regional conflict involving Iran and its most powerful terror proxy Hezbollah.

Blinken began his tour on Saturday in Turkey and Greece before traveling to Israel and other parts of the Arab world. The top diplomat urged the Gulf nations to stop the “endless cycle of violence” and asked regional players to use their influence constructively to prevent the conflict from spreading across the Middle East.

“We want to make sure that countries who feel that way are also using their ties, using their influence, using their relationships with some of the actors that might be involved to keep a lid on things, to make sure that we’re not seeing the spread of conflict,” Blinken stated ahead of his visit to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Blinken is also scheduled to visit Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Israel and Egypt.

While the Biden administration backs Israel’s right to self-defense, it has also emphasized Jerusalem’s desire to avoid the conflict spreading to other fronts.

“From the perspective of Israel, it’s clearly not interested, does not want escalation… but they also have to be fully prepared to defend themselves,” Blinken stated, following a barrage of dozens of missiles fired at Israel by the Lebanese-based terror organization Hezbollah.

Blinken’s upcoming visit to Israel will be his fifth since the war with Hamas began on Oct. 7, when terrorists and accomplices invaded southern Israel and slaughtered more than 1,200 Israelis, taking some 240 others hostage.

In late November, Blinken arrived in Israel shortly after a terror attack had taken place in the Jewish state’s capital Jerusalem.

“We're reminded yet again by the events in Jerusalem today of the threat from terrorism that Israel and Israelis face every single day,” the state secretary said.

At the same time, Washington has urged Israel to increase its already considerable efforts to minimize civilian casualties in the densely populated Gaza Strip. In addition, the Biden administration has emphasized the need for an increased inflow of humanitarian aid to Gaza amid the ongoing war with Hamas.

Blinken will not visit the Islamic Republic of Iran during this trip. The Iranian ayatollah regime is ideologically committed to the destruction of the Jewish state, however, has mostly avoided direct confrontations with Israel and the United States, leaving the fighting to its regional terror proxies Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, the Houthis in Yemen, among others.

The New York Times recently reported that Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had urged its military to exercise “strategic patience” regarding “a direct military confrontation with the United States.”