US mounts furi­ous diplo­mat­ic effort to head off wider war in Mid­dle East

US mounts furious diplomatic effort to head off wider war in Middle East

‘WE ARE ENGAGED IN INTENSE DIPLOMACY’: Anoth­er tense night passed in Israel with­out Iran’s threat­ened major attack mate­ri­al­iz­ing, but no one is breath­ing a sigh of relief.
“It is a crit­i­cal moment.  We are engaged in intense diplo­ma­cy pret­ty much around the clock, with a very sim­ple mes­sage: All par­ties must refrain from esca­la­tion.  All par­ties must take steps to ease ten­sions.  Esca­la­tion is not in anyone’s inter­est. It will only lead to more con­flict, more vio­lence, more inse­cu­ri­ty,” Sec­re­tary of State Antony Blinken said at a State Depart­ment news con­fer­ence. “It’s also crit­i­cal tha …