By Athena Papakosta

What the president of the United States feared, joe biden, from the first moment Hamas attacked Israel on the morning of October 7th and since then Washington has been trying to prevent it is now a fact. THE Middle East is on the brink of a regional war.

The persistent question of the autumn “what will Iran do?” was answered by Tehran itself on the evening of April 13, two weeks after the strike in Damascus leveled the Iranian consulate and neutralized commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – among them two generals. Iran blamed Israel and a few days later its response came with 300 ballistic missiles and drones against Israel.

The entire area is a tightrope walk. Just like, however, the United States of America, which now sees the balances have become even more delicate.

Washington has failed to de-escalate the situation and prevent Tehran’s retaliation while President Biden remains under pressure at home for its relations with Israel.

At the same time, any agreement on a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip seems to be collapsing in this evolving environment.

Biden-Netanyahu relations in recent times have been through fire and iron with the ground invasion of the Israeli Armed Forces in the city of Rafah, the last refuge of hundreds of thousands of civilians in the Palestinian enclave, being the source of tension between the allied countries. In fact, it had come to a red light with the United States not hesitating to threaten a review of its attitude towards Israel – a fact that even included the possibility of imposing conditions on the granting of military aid.

However, Iran’s attack has turned the tables and reshuffled the cards in this ongoing poker game that has been played out before the stunned eyes of the international community for the past few days.

Analysts trying to read the data explain that the fact that the interception, outside of Israel’s airspace, involved fighters from the United States could give Washington the advantage of being able to further exploit its position to influence the decision that will receive Israel.

At the same time, American President Joe Biden is faced with the paradox of on the one hand lowering the tension with Iran and on the other hand making Tehran understand that its actions have consequences.

What is required for Washington, which is not naive to believe that there will be no Israeli response, is that it should be well thought out, properly calculated and can be seen as an attitude of self-restraint.

The United States has already made it clear that its support for Israel will remain “unwavering” and “unyielding” by making it clear that it will not participate in any Israeli retaliation against Tehran.

For its part, the Israeli leadership has made it clear that “Israel will make its own decisions and do whatever is necessary to protect Israel, even if this is against the advice of its allies.”

Meanwhile, in the ongoing behind-closed-doors haggling, Arab media are reporting that Israel has been persuaded not to launch a large-scale operation against Iran in exchange for a White House green light for ground intervention in Rafah. Officially, there is no recorded reaction from Washington to the information in question, but high-level delegations from the United States and Israel met on the Rafa issue, with White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan heading the American delegation and White House sources to express their concerns noting that Israel will take them into account and the two sides will talk about the issue again.