Are downplaying this. They are not at this point pointing the finger at israel. They are not at this point promising revenge. We are expecting to hear the iranians speaking fairly shortly. This is preplanned speech. Its not specifically in response to this strike, so well be closely monitoring that. In terms of israel, they are not officially claiming responsibility one way or another there are no plans of address from netanyahu and no official comment from the Israeli Government and israeli military. And that, too, is really telling. It feels like the israelis are trying to give iran space to not escalate this further. Theyre not trying to rub irans face in this. Theyre not crowing, not claiming victory. So you have this kind of war of words playing out on top of the actual strike itself, so at this moment despite those iranian threats weve been hearing all week that any iisraeli attack would be met with massive retaliation, it does not look like iran is trying to escalate, and here i
i would expect to understand that this attack was going to happen. the cia director, bill burns, was in dallas at the george w. bush library. he didn t say israel should not strike. he talked about continuing on the path of de-escalation. i think that whether this is what the united states expected or intended, but that s what you re going to see the white house do, is try to keep this on a path of de-escalation. i know that the iranians have not reacted yet. i know the hope is that they also see this as a limited strike. that the banner in which their attack went down was seen as not something that was going to cause another escalation, and that that is how both sides here treat this attack. but the next few hours are very dicey, and that will determine whether or not how the iranians react to it.
next is the most, you know, important indicator, but i think that the white house will try to keep it, make this all seem as if it is a part of the path of de-escalation. if you make it seem like that, you know, you have to operate as if that s what s happening, and that ll probably be the most important thing they can do to make that happen. jen, i think you re right. especially since the word of the week, it felt like, in conversations between president biden and netanyahu, was restraint. it seems like that s potentially what they got in this strike here. of course portrayed as such, i think, right? you can portray it as such. as you noted, the u.s. was quick to note, saying, we are not part of it. the u.s. is trying to make it as comfortable as possible for iran to treat this as if it is part of a path of de-escalation. tough when you ve just been attacked, i know. yeah, i think that s exactly right. it is a delicate situation there. it is also delicate when you