No solution to Mideast crisis without active U.S. leadership – CIA director
DAMASCUS, Syria (North Press) – The United States is not responsible for resolving any of the complex problems in the Middle East, but it is impossible to manage and solve any of these issues without active leadership from the U.S., Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, William Burns, said on Tuesday.
In an op-ed in the Foreign Affairs magazine, Burns said that “the crisis precipitated by Hamas’s butchery in Israel on October 7, 2023, is a painful reminder of the complexity of the choices that the Middle East continues to pose for the United States.”
The CIA director described the current state of the Middle East as the most “tangled or explosive” he has ever witnessed in his 40-year career working in and on the region.
“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,” he wrote.
In addition, he said, it is difficult to find a long-lasting peace deal “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.”
“Hard as it may be to imagine those possibilities amid the current crisis, it is even harder to imagine getting out of the crisis without pursuing them seriously,” he added.
Burns noted that ensuring the security of Israel and the region heavily relies on addressing the threats posed by Iran. “The Iranian regime has been emboldened by the crisis and seems ready to fight to its last regional proxy.”