The United States’ top general on Monday warned Iran not to get involved in the crisis in Israel and said he did not want the conflict to the broaden, as Lebanese armed group Hezbollah fired a salvo of rockets onto northern Israel

The White House earlier on Monday said that Iran was complicit even though the United States has no intelligence or evidence that points to Iran’s direct participation in attacks in Israel by Palestinian Islamist group Hamas.

Asked what his message for Iran was, General Charles Q. Brown, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said: “Not to get involved.”

Israeli shelling on Lebanon killed at least three Hezbollah militants on Monday, and Israel said one of its officers was killed during an earlier cross-border raid claimed by Palestinians in Lebanon.

The cross-border violence marked a significant expansion of a conflict between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza to the Israeli-Lebanese border further north.

  • TheSecurityNinja@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    I traveled with General Brown as part of a diplomatic engagement while I was stationed at central command in Tampa Florida back in 2017. I even got to sit in on a meeting with him and a foreign minister of defense.

    I found him to be level headed, calm and very intelligent. He handled himself well and was everything you would want a general to be. I’m glad to see he’s risen to the position of chief of staff

        • TheSecurityNinja@sh.itjust.works
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          Lol, wasn’t trying to advocate for the government at all. And don’t really care if it’s believed. Just saying I met the dude and he seemed like a pretty good guy to me.

          At the time I was a low level USAF officer (Captain) assigned to be the US liaison at Central Command for the US embassy in Turkmenistan. It was a temporary, normally very sleepy assignment, since we don’t normally do squat with Turkmenistan, but at that particular moment in time the US decided to do a diplomatic engagement, and I got to travel with the team. It was a fun and somewhat surreal experience. I even got to meet the US ambassador.

          • steltek@lemm.ee
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            Turkmenistan should be congratulated for being a sleepy assignment. That’s a high achievement these days.

    • circuscritic@lemmy.ca
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      Oh yeah? Well I traveled with Biden and he seemed unwell as it was past his bedtime and he was sundowning, but his dog didn’t bite me, so that was nice.

  • demonquark@lemmy.ml
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    This is a pretty empty threat. Realistically speaking the US cannot escalate without facing huge domestic backlash. Public support for US involvement in a new war in a is nonexistent, given the abject an expensive failures of the recent afghan and iraqi wars.

    Add the fact that any iranian involvement would go through hezbollah, gives both the us government and iran a way to plausibly deny iranian involvement. The US will do nothing. They might send some troop to “support” israel. They already have. Which is a token gesture at best.

    • ryathal@sh.itjust.works
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      Public support for a prolonged engagement is likely low. Minimal boots on the ground style bomb the crap out of you is probably always acceptable though.

    • Buelldozer@lemmy.today
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      Public support for US involvement in a new war in a is nonexistent

      When has that ever stopped a nation from going to war? We all know how easy it is to shift public opinion if the Government, any Government, really wants to do something.

      WWI - Lusitania, WWII - Pearl Harbor, Vietnam - Gulf of Tonkin, Gulf War I - Kuwait / Oil, GWoT - Twin Towers

      The US will do nothing.

      As history shows they will do what they choose and it could be anything from scathing press releases to loaded bombers. They obviously don’t want to get directly involved in a new ME crisis right now but that doesn’t mean they won’t.

    • Pohl@lemmy.world
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      It wouldn’t surprise me terribly if it came to pass that the US populace was ready for blood over this. Nobody in my circle is down to get involved but god only knows what is going through the head of the average person in this country.

      Deep in the hangover from the abject failure of the Iraq war, there were goofballs singing “bomb bomb Iran”. We are a warmongering people.

  • mlg@lemmy.world
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    Iran" “Yeah yeah of course because I didn’t do nothing or see nothing”

  • trailing9@lemmy.ml
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    Iran was complicit even though the United States has no intelligence or evidence

    Is there no racism in the army that he isn’t worried that the statement looks too close to general Powell’s speech about WMD?

    He most likely is right but the similarity is unfortunate.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    ABOARD A U.S. MILITARY AIRCRAFT, Oct 9 (Reuters) - The United States’ top general on Monday warned Iran not to get involved in the crisis in Israel and said he did not want the conflict to the broaden, as Lebanese armed group Hezbollah fired a salvo of rockets onto northern Israel

    The White House earlier on Monday said that Iran was complicit even though the United States has no intelligence or evidence that points to Iran’s direct participation in attacks in Israel by Palestinian Islamist group Hamas.

    The cross-border violence marked a significant expansion of a conflict between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza to the Israeli-Lebanese border further north.

    We do not want this to broaden and the idea is for Iran to get that message loud and clear," Brown told a small group of reporters traveling with him to Brussels, in his first public comments since being confirmed to the job last month.

    The U.S. military is “surging” fresh supplies of air defenses, munitions and other security assistance to Israel to help it respond to an unprecedented weekend attack by Hamas.

    On Sunday, the Pentagon announced that it was sending an aircraft carrier strike group closer to Israel.


    The original article contains 338 words, the summary contains 200 words. Saved 41%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

  • archiotterpup@lemmy.world
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    They’re already involved. Why else would this be happening right as Israel and Saudi held diplomatic talks.

  • Eezyville@sh.itjust.works
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    I wonder how we would feel if a country like China or something told us not to get involved in conflicts as if they were the police of something. So if Iran isn’t allowed to get in is the US also banned? Seems a bit whimsical to think that a Middle Eastern country would ignore a Middle Eastern conflict.

    • Cypher@lemmy.world
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      China regularly tells other nations, including the US, not to get involved in their disputes over the South China Sea and Taiwan. It is normal diplomatic posturing.

    • bassomitron@lemmy.world
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      Like someone else said, China does regularly say such things. Regardless, Israel is an ally of the US, which most definitely gives them a political reason to tell Iran to stay out.

    • JJROKCZ@lemmy.world
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      Nations regularly tell each other to mind their own business, only a few have the power to back up the subtle threats though.

      For example, China tells Vietnam to mind their own business, Vietnam listens because it is vastly weaker.

      China tells the US to mind their own business, the US doesn’t listen because it doesn’t need to, they have the power to back up their watchdog of the world claim and will do what they please.

      • Buelldozer@lemmy.today
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        the US doesn’t listen because it doesn’t need to, they have the power to back up their watchdog of the world claim and will do what they please.

        As Mao Zedong famously said “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”.

    • GBU_28@lemm.ee
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      What? A country can say whatever they want, it’s the credible threat of getting bombed a few centuries back in time that makes the words mean anything.