This is an excerpt from Security Briefing, Al-Monitor's weekly newsletter covering defense and conflict developments in the Middle East. To get Security Briefing in your inbox, sign up here.
Short of a nuclear-armed standoff, the stakes arguably couldn’t be higher across the Middle East right now.
The Pentagon — faced with the prospect of getting dragged into a broad regional war that could likely collapse Washington’s entire Middle East strategy — has dispatched veteran commanders of the defeat-ISIS campaign to Tel Aviv in a bid to temper and channel the Israeli resolve.
But as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made clear on Wednesday, some sort of invasion of the Gaza Strip is certain.
