CIA Director William Burns warned Monday of the possibility that simmering clashes in the Middle East could spread throughout the region, even though, he said, the U.S. intelligence community has assessed that Iranian and Israeli leaders were not seeking “all-out conflict.”
“[W]We face the very real danger of further regional escalation of conflict,” Burns said during a moderated question-and-answer session at the annual Cipher Brief threat conference in Sea Island, Georgia. He said Israeli leaders were “assessing very carefully” how it would be responding to Iran’s ballistic missile attack last week, but warned that “errors of judgment” could still lead to an inadvertent spiral of escalation.
“The Middle East is a place where complicated things happen all the time,” Burns said.
A combination of robust US-Israeli intelligence sharing and “strong” integrated air defense, allowed defeat of Iran’s large-scale missile attack on Oct. 1, Burns said. The attack revealed some “limits” in Tehran’s military capabilities, but he added that “this does not mean that these capabilities are not still quite powerful and that not only Israel, but also the United States, must be taken very seriously.
The former senior diplomat…who played a key role during negotiations of the 2015 nuclear deal that imposed constraints on Iran’s uranium enrichment program – said his agency nonetheless saw no indication that Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei , had decided to accelerate his country’s efforts to produce a nuclear weapon.
“[W]”We see no evidence today that the Supreme Leader has reversed the decision he made in late 2003 to suspend the weapons program,” Burns said. He acknowledged, however, that Iran was in a “much closer position” to creating a single bomb’s worth of military-grade material, with a breakout time now of “a week or a little more “.
Speaking a year after the assault by Hamas militants in southern Israelkilling more than 1,200 Israelis and kidnapping more than 250, Burns – who for the past year has been leading diplomatic negotiations alongside his counterparts from Qatar, Egypt and Israel – expressed hope that a diplomatic deal can still be concluded for a ceasefire and guarantee peace. release of remaining hostages in Gaza.
“We’ve come at least close a few times, but it’s been very difficult to achieve,” he said. Negotiations on Gaza have stalled in recent weeks because, according to US officials, Yahya Sinwar, leader of Hamas had stopped responding to updated proposals.
“[W]“What is at stake in Gaza is determined by political will,” Burns stressed. “At the end of the day, it’s not just about brackets in text or creative phrasing when you’re trying to negotiate a hostage deal and ceasefire. It’s about leaders having to ultimately recognizing that enough is enough, that perfection is rarely on the menu, especially in the Middle East.”
“And then you have to make tough choices and compromises in the interest of long-term strategic stability as well,” he said.
