US Secretary of State Anthony blinkin is back in the Middle East for a week-long trip through several countries amid fears a fullscale war could erupt in the region those anxieties were recently heightened by a suspected Israeli strike on a Hamas leader in Lebanon twin bombings in Iran and no end in sight to Israel's war in Gaza where Israel's military says it struck more than a 100 targets across Gaza overnight as it intensifies operations in Central and Southern parts of the strip but as many Middle East experts point out each recent conflict is interconnected and shows the tensions are at a boiling point so far the US has held back from using direct military retaliation over worries a broader regional conflict could have dire political and economic consequences but are we on the brink of one anyway I'm joined Now by Dr Michael Boyle, he's an associate professor of political science at ruter University Dr Michael Bo thanks so much for coming back on the show uh the US is engaged obviously in this renewed diplomatic Push by being in the Middle East right now H what are the chances of this conflict escalating to a more Regional War fairly substantial the US has actually come out this morning and said they think the risks are very real and in part the reason the risks are very real is that we've started to see increasing crossb tensions on the southern border with Lebanon and the northern border with Israel and we're seeing there's been a long time where Hezbollah has been essentially shelling the Border towns of Northern Israel we've seen in the last week Israel has struck within Beirut to kill Hamas operatives that they thought were responsible for the October 7th attack and that puts Hezbollah in a position of well do they escalate the attacks along the border and do they start to conduct deeper attacks into Israel itself if that happens the Israeli government has said that they will then respond with Force so I think what's going on is the US is attempting to make sure that the responses are calibrated in other words that Israel doesn't go too far in its response to hezbollah's provocations and that whoever in the region is talking to Hezbollah can try and convince Hezbollah not to go so far to provoke Israel well and in fact leaders from Hezbollah didn't mince words that there will be retribution for that attack in Beirut so at what point does the US respond militarily it seems like these extremist groups are walking right up to the line so the US is unlikely to respond directly against hezb although Israel might the US has already begun to respond to extremes groups in the region in different ways if you looked in the last week US forces uh actually attacked a series of houthi boats um that were attacking US Naval forces we've also conducted a series of strikes in Iraq enraging the Iraqi government and part of the reason that's happened is that there is a network of armed groups largely coordinated by Iran but not entirely directed by Iran that links Hezbollah as well as the houthis as as well as a series of Iranian back groups in Iraq so the US has already started responding in a kind of limited way to both H the attacks on US forces and to attacks on US forces in Iraq and that's important because the Biden Administration is coming under pressure not to simply just sit there as these groups attack them so I would expect escalation from the US point of view to go along in those theaters but probably not directly against Hezbollah against Hezbollah and Lebanon the concern is really whether that will sort of pop off between Israel and hezb itself not to mention it's an election year for the US uh so there's that interest uh so let me ask you then is there a national interest for the major parties uh Regional Powers really in the Middle East to engage in some type of uh broader conflict you mentioned Iran uh they are integral in a lot of these militant groups is it even avoidable at this point it is avoidable I mean Iran normally calibrates its use of violence against its enemies whether it the United States whether that would be Israel in a way designed essentially to harass them but not to provoke to the point that it invites a response against Iran and that's in part because what's at play here really is nuclear weapons and that's the concern here right that Israel has nuclear weapons that Iran is developing nuclear weapons that usually puts a kind of cap on how far they're willing to go that said there's a real chance of miscalculation so Iran might think that sponsoring militant group attacks on either on Israel or the United States kind of walks up to a line but doesn't cross it but that doesn't that the line itself is not actually crossed so there's a real risk of escalation here as a result of that well let me ask you in the time that we have remaining about this uh long-term peace plan that uh Benjamin Netanyahu has laid out um and whether or not the US has the tolerance for something of this extent so the the plan that was put forward by the Israeli government is in part a response to the Biden Administration saying tell us what your plan is for the day afterwards the problem is what Israel has tabled does not square with what the United States has argued what Israel has Ted is a situation under which Palestinians will be in charge of Gaza but there'll be some unspecified multinational Force Egypt will play some sort of role Israel will still have security responsibility and essentially there'll be no role for the Palestinian Authority and the Biden Administration has been very clear that the only legitimate body that they see running Gaza after the war ends is the Palestinian Authority and I think that's the root of the conflict at the moment between the United States and Israel is is an understanding of okay who is running this the day after so it's very good that there is a plan on the table but I don't think that plan is acceptable to the United States and I think this is where you're going to start to see more hard conversations between the United States Israel about what this looks like when the war ends Dr Michael Boyle is an associate professor of political science at Rutgers University thank you so much thank you [Music]