CIA director says Mideast ‘more explosive’ than ever, points finger at ’emboldened’ Iran

CIA Director William Burns says in an article titled “Spycraft and Statecraft” published Tuesday in Foreign Affairs magazine that he has “spent much of the last four decades working in and on the Middle East,” and has “rarely seen it more tangled or explosive.”

“Winding down the intense Israeli ground operation in the Gaza Strip, meeting the deep humanitarian needs of suffering Palestinian civilians, freeing hostages, preventing the spread of conflict to other fronts in the region, and shaping a workable approach for the ‘day after’ in Gaza are all incredibly difficult problems,” writes Burns, who met with the Qatari prime minister in Paris this weekend for hostage negotiations, alongside Mossad Director David Barnea and Egyptian intel chief Abbas Kamel.

Burns says “resurrecting hope for a durable peace that ensures Israel’s security as well as Palestinian statehood and takes advantage of historic opportunities for normalization with Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries” are also difficult but necessary and should be pursued seriously.

The CIA director points the finger squarely at Iran, which backs Palestinian terror group Hamas, Lebanese terror group Hezbollah and the Houthis in Yemen, and says Tehran has been “emboldened by the crisis and seems ready to fight to its last regional proxy, all while expanding its nuclear program and enabling Russian aggression.”

“Key to Israel’s — and the region’s — security is dealing with Iran,” he says.

“The United States is not exclusively responsible for resolving any of the Middle East’s vexing problems. But none of them can be managed, let alone solved, without active US leadership,” writes Burns.