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The Biden administration's top diplomat is heading back to the Middle East at another critical juncture. Israeli forces killed the Hamas leader in Gaza last week, and they've been pressing their offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon, too. Israel is also poised to strike Iran in response to a massive Iranian missile attack earlier this month. NPR's Michele Kelemen reports that the U.S. has been trying to prevent the kind of regional war that this is rapidly becoming.
MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: This will be Secretary of State Antony Blinken's first visit to Israel since an Iranian missile attack October 1, the killings of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in Gaza last week and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon last month. State Department spokesman Vedant Patel says there could be an opening for diplomacy, particularly in Gaza.
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VEDANT PATEL: We feel strongly that there is an opportunity to move the ball forward as it relates to getting a cease-fire accomplished.
KELEMEN: And a deal to get hostages out of Gaza, including some Americans. The U.S. painted Sinwar as the main obstacle to that, but Brian Katulis of the Middle East Institute says it was never that clear-cut, and Blinken has work to do.
BRIAN KATULIS: The stakes are high, but the odds of success are low, which makes it like a lot of his previous trips.
KELEMEN: Blinken has tried on numerous trips to move cease-fire talks forward and to push Israel to allow more aid into Gaza. While some hope that Israel will change its approach now that it has killed Sinwar, one of its key war goals, Katulis says many in the region fear the opposite.
KATULIS: I think that's the fear of many of the hostage families right now - is that the basic disarray of Hamas but also this sort of creation of a Mogadishu on the Mediterranean that is a consequence of Israel's prosecution of this war without having a clear end game in mind could actually complicate the efforts of trying to achieve a diplomatic resolution here.
KELEMEN: Then there's Israel's war to the north, where it is trying to push the militant group Hezbollah back from the border with Lebanon. Some hawkish voices in the U.S and in Israel see this as a time to press Israel's advantage against Iranian proxies in the Middle East. That worries Matt Duss, a former foreign policy adviser for Senator Bernie Sanders.
MATT DUSS: There are people in the Biden administration who are buying this. They see, you know, what is happening in Gaza, what is happening in Lebanon, possible strikes elsewhere in the region, including in Iran, as a way to essentially reshuffle the regional security deck.
KELEMEN: All the talk about reshaping the Middle East reminds him of the things the Bush administration would say during the last Israel-Hezbollah war in Lebanon.
DUSS = POLITICAL ADVISER: And we have seen historically that this kind of hubris and overreach does not deliver peace. It does not deliver stability. It has a whole set of unintended consequences that may not happen right now, but they will come.
KELEMEN: Duss, who's with the Center for International Policy, is a critic of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying the Israeli leader has prioritized his own political power rather than looking for ways to end the war. So Duss does not have high hopes for Secretary Blinken's trip.
DUSS = POLITICAL ADVISER: I think the United States looks, you know, more powerless with every successive trip he takes there and comes back with nothing.
KELEMEN: Blinken has meetings with Israeli officials on Tuesday and is expected to make other stops in the region this week. Michele Kelemen, NPR News, the State Department. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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