‘Hard to predict' if the US will become involved in Middle East war
Middle East Forum security analyst Jonathan Spyer analyses whether the United States will become directly involved in the Middle East war.
'Certainly, there's clearly a coordinated attempt to place very, very heavy pressure on the Iranians right now,' Mr Spyer told Sky News host Chris Kenny.
'As to whether the United States will in fact come in or not, it is very, very hard to predict … we should not rule anything out.'

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The Age
27 minutes ago
- The Age
Trump faces three excruciating choices in a war only he can end
The German foreign minister has offered, alongside Britain and France, to negotiate with the Iranians. But America would still have to play a central role in the talks. No one else could assure both Israel and Iran that an agreement would stick. If it is serious about a deal, it will need to be a more competent negotiator this time around. Steve Witkoff, the US president's Middle East envoy, managed just five meetings with Iran in two months, while juggling a portfolio that also included the wars in Gaza and Ukraine. He also scorned help from American allies (a European diplomat says he received more detailed readouts on the talks from Iran than from America). Loading Would America join the war? If Trump is not serious about diplomacy, his second choice is whether America should join the war. Satellite imagery suggests that Israel has destroyed the so-called 'pilot-fuel enrichment plant' at Natanz, an above-ground facility where Iran enriched uranium to 60 per cent, a small step below weapons-grade. But it has yet to damage the enrichment facility at Fordow, which is dug into the side of a mountain, too deep for Israeli ordnance to reach. Israel could damage the entrances and ventilation shafts, in effect entombing the facility for a time. It would rather enlist help from America, which has specialised bombs capable of burrowing deep underground. It has asked Trump to join strikes on Fordow (he has not yet agreed). In the most optimistic scenario, those sorties would both cripple the facility and spook Iran into submitting to a deal. Reality is rarely so tidy, however. Iran may fear that strikes on Fordow are merely the opening act in a broader campaign to topple the regime. That could lead it to retaliate against America or its allies in the region. Iran has so far refrained from such actions, fearing they would draw America into the war; if America were already involved, though, Iran may feel it had nothing to lose. Some of Trump's supporters in Washington, and some analysts in Israel, suspect Netanyahu has such a scenario in mind. When the war began, after all, Israel said it only needed America's permission. Now it wants America to join a limited military campaign – one that could easily morph into something bigger. The prime minister seems increasingly fixated on toppling Iran's regime. In a statement addressed to the people of Iran on June 13, he urged them to 'stand up' against their rulers. Two days later, in an interview with Fox News, he was asked if regime change was Israel's goal. 'It could certainly be the result, because the Iran regime is very weak,' Netanyahu replied. Several of Trump's advisers have urged him not to approve American strikes, fearing it would become an open-ended campaign. Loading The final option That points to Trump's third choice. Israeli leaders like to say that their country defends itself by itself. But it relies on America to protect it against Iranian ballistic missiles, to share intelligence and to resupply its army. If Trump stays out of the war, and if he declines to pursue serious diplomacy – or if his efforts are aimless and futile, a hallmark of his administration – he will have to decide how much continued support to give Israel. He could urge Israel to end the war anyway. Or he could allow it to continue, much as he has done in Gaza since March, when Israel abandoned a ceasefire there. Israel could probably continue its strikes in Iran for weeks, especially if Iran runs short of the ballistic missiles it uses to counter-attack. Would it eventually declare victory? Or would it keep bombing and hope it could destabilise the regime? And if Iran could no longer effectively strike back at Israel, would it widen the war to neighbouring countries?

Sydney Morning Herald
an hour ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Trump must decide whether to join the kind of war he's always sworn he'd avoid
Washington: US President Donald Trump is weighing a critical decision in the five-day-old war between Israel and Iran: whether to enter the fray by helping Israel destroy Iran's deeply buried nuclear enrichment facility at Fordow, which only US 'bunker busters' dropped by US B-2 bombers, can reach. If he decides to go ahead, the United States will become a direct participant in a new conflict in the Middle East, taking on Iran in exactly the kind of war Trump has sworn, in two campaigns, he would avoid. Iranian officials have warned that American participation in an attack on its facilities will imperil any remaining chance of the nuclear disarmament deal that Trump insists he is still interested in pursuing. Trump has encouraged Vice President J.D. Vance and his Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, to offer to meet the Iranians this week, according to a US official. The offer may be well received. Trump, at the Group of Seven summit in Canada, on Tuesday (AEST), said: 'I think Iran basically is at the negotiating table, they want to make a deal.' If such a meeting happened, officials say, the likely Iranian interlocutor would be the country's foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, who played a key role in the 2015 nuclear deal with the Obama administration and knows every element of Iran's sprawling nuclear complex. Araghchi, who has been Witkoff's counterpart in recent negotiations, signalled his openness to a deal, saying in a statement, 'If President Trump is genuine about diplomacy and interested in stopping this war, next steps are consequential.' Loading 'It takes one phone call from Washington to muzzle someone like Netanyahu,' he said, referring to the Israeli prime minister. 'That may pave the way for a return to diplomacy.' But if that diplomatic effort fizzles, or the Iranians remain unwilling to give in to Trump's central demand that they must ultimately end all uranium enrichment on Iranian soil, the president will still have the option of ordering that Fordow and other nuclear facilities be destroyed. There is only one weapon for the job, experts contend. It is called the Massive Ordnance Penetrator, or the GBU-57, and it weighs so much – 30,000 pounds (13 tonnes) – that it can be lifted only by a B-2 bomber. Israel does not own either the weapon or the bomber needed to get it aloft and over a target.

Sky News AU
2 hours ago
- Sky News AU
Middle East war an ‘opportunity' to overthrow a ‘brutal regime': Nigel Farage
Reform UK Leader Nigel Farage highlights how the war in the Middle East is an 'opportunity' to overthrow a 'brutal' regime. 'I have to say Afghanistan going on for 20 years, it was never winnable, even at the height of the British Empire, twice the British lost wars in Afghanistan and we learnt nothing from it,' Mr Farage told Sky News host Paul Murray. 'This is different … this is an opportunity, a real opportunity to overthrow a truly brutal and evil regime.'