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A Middle Eastern region already on edge over the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza faced another escalation of violence on April 1 when Israel struck the Iranian embassy complex in Damascus, killing 16 people, including eight officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Two weeks later, Iran responded by attacking Israel from Iranian territory for the first time with at least 300 drones and missiles. An Israeli base in the Negev desert sustained light damage, and a 7-year-old girl was seriously wounded, The New York Times reported, but more serious damage was averted because the United States and its allies helped Israel intercept the Iranian onslaught. Israel's retaliation on April 18 was more limited than expected, but as the two countries had brought their long shadow war into the open, many people were fearful of what might come next. Arms Control Today gathered three experts on May 24 to discuss the implications of the Iranian-Israeli faceoff for the region. Nicole Grajewski is a fellow with the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Sina Toossi is a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, and Ali Vaez is senior adviser at the International Crisis Group and director of the group's Iran Project.
This transcript has been edited for clarity and length.
Arms Control Today: Why did the shooting war between Iran and Israel not explode into a wider war? What does this escalation mean to regional stability and the regional balance of power?
Ali Vaez: I think there are two main reasons why the exchange of fire between Iran and Israel did not result in an all-out war. The first is that none of the key stakeholders-Iran, the United States, and I would even say the Israeli government-had an interest in this turning into a regional conflagration. We know the United States already has its hands full with the war in Ukraine, with the war in Gaza, with concerns about China's designs over Taiwan and it's an election year, of course. In Iran, there is deep socioeconomic discontent, and the country just does not have the bandwidth to go through a conflict with much stronger adversaries such as Israel and the United States. Finally, Israel already is bogged...