Fears of wider Mideast conflict deepen, with US seen as ‘not in control’

A large crowd of mourners for Ismail Haniyeh, a top political leader of Hamas, at his funeral in Tehran. — ©2024 The New York Times Company

FOR months, diplomats and analysts in foreign capitals have worried that prolonged political upheaval in the United States could invite aggression abroad, whether in Russia’s waging of war in Ukraine, North Korea’s rogue nuclear ambitions or China’s expansionist designs in the South China Sea.

Now, less than 100 days before Americans elect a new president, that broader geopolitical crisis has erupted in the familiar theatre of the Middle East. The targeted killings of Hezbollah and Hamas leaders in Beirut, Lebanon and Tehran, Iran, have deepened fears of a regionwide conflict – one that the US, caught up in its own political drama at home, may have little capacity to avert or even contain.