U.S. ships ‘vulnerable’ to attack in eastern Mediterranean, contends Iran’s foreign minister

Iran’s foreign minister says Washington’s deployment of aircraft carrier groups to the eastern Mediterranean to defend Israel makes the U.S. military assets “more vulnerable” to attacks by the Tehran-backed terror group Hezbollah based in Lebanon.

“Our military officials are of the opinion that the deployment of U.S. aircraft carriers near our region, which makes them accessible, is not a strong point for the U.S.,” Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian told the Financial Times in an interview.

“Rather, it makes them more vulnerable to possible strikes,” he said.

Mr. Amirabdollahian added that Iranian officials have messaged U.S. diplomats through back channels that Tehran does not want the Israel-Hamas war to spread but that a regional conflict could be inevitable if Israeli attacks on Gaza don’t stop.

“Over the past 40 days, messages have been exchanged between Iran and the U.S. via the U.S. interests section at the Swiss Embassy in Tehran,” Mr. Amirabdollahian told the Financial Times.

He ruled out the possibility of direct talks between the two foes.

“In response to the U.S.,” Mr. Amirabdollahian said, “we said that Iran does not want the war to spread, but due to the approach adopted by the U.S. and Israel in the region, if the crimes against the people of Gaza and the West Bank are not stopped, any possibility could be considered and a wider conflict could prove inevitable.”

Regional concerns are soaring, meanwhile, over the prospect that a Hezbollah attack on Israel could trigger retaliatory strikes by Israel or the U.S. against Iran, which is the Lebanon-based group’s primary backer.

Mr. Amirabdollahian said the U.S. didn’t make threats that Iran could be hit if Hezbollah launched an all-out assault on Israel. However, he accused Washington of inviting Tehran “to exercise restraint” while it was itself escalating the war in Gaza with massive support for Israel.

“The war has already expanded in the region,” the foreign minister said. “The fact that the Yemeni army [Iran-backed Houthi movement] … attacks the occupied lands with missiles and drones means the war has begun to expand. The fact that Hezbollah is fighting with a third of the Israeli army shows the war has expanded.”

Israeli forces have engaged in missile exchanges with Hezbollah fighters along the Israel-Lebanon border the past month. The battles have prompted fears of a widening clash and potentially a direct war between Israel and Iran.

The U.S. and its allies accuse Tehran of backing Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis as terrorist proxies, seeking to destroy Israel and spread Iranian influence around the Middle East.

In his interview with the Financial Times, Mr. Amirabdollahian maintained that Hezbollah and other Islamist militants in Gaza, Iraq, Syria and Yemen aren’t Iran’s proxy forces, that each has an independent political identity. But he warned the groups “are not indifferent toward the killing of their Muslim and Arab peers in Palestine.”