CIA Chief Says Misunderstandings Could Worsen Israel-Iran Clash

Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns warned that misjudgments could get in the way of efforts to dampen rising tensions between Iran and Israel over the next few weeks.

“We face the very real danger of a further regional escalation of conflict,” Burns said Monday during a fireside chat at the Cipher Brief Threat Conference in Sea Island, Georgia.

Burns added that he doesn’t think that leaders in either Israel or Iran are looking for all-out conflict, but that risks of escalation remain.

He spoke exactly one year after the devastating Hamas assault on Israel and as the Middle East awaits the Israeli government’s response to last week’s Iranian missile attack on the country. At the same time, Lebanon has become the setting of the latest clashes between Israel and Hezbollah, and the conflict in the Gaza Strip continues.

The Israel Defense Forces said Monday that it had intercepted most of a barrage of rockets fired toward Tel Aviv by Hamas and other Iran-backed groups. The IDF said 135 rockets were fired at northern Israel by Lebanon-based Hezbollah, while Israeli jets carried out heavy bombardment in southern Lebanon.

Read More: Israel Fights on Multiple Fronts as War With Hamas Marks a Year

“You can see the potential for inadvertent collisions, misunderstandings, actions that take on the life of their own,” added Burns, who has taken part in negotiations to bring an end to the Gaza war. “And I think that’s the challenge for the president and for policymakers on the US side to help navigate over the course of the next few weeks.”

Burns said how Israel decides to defend itself and respond to the recent Iranian ballistic missile attack “is really important.”

“I think now the Israeli leadership is weighing very carefully how it’s going to respond,” he said, adding he thinks the Israeli leadership “takes into account” the concerns expressed by President Joe Biden and senior US policymakers.

“All of us are acutely aware of the potential consequences of different forms of strikes and consequences for the global energy market and the global economy too,” he added later in answer to a question.

He said that the Israeli response to the missile attack, with the support of the US, in some ways exposed “some of the limitations” in Iranian military capabilities.

“But that’s not to suggest that those capabilities are still not quite potent,” he said.