“‘Since there were no casualties, President Trump seems to be taking the opportunity to say this is the end of this round. That’s a hopeful sign, (but) it doesn’t mean this is the end of this conflict,’ said Daniel Shapiro, who was the U.S. ambassador to Israel between 2011 and 2017.
“He warned that the supposed a deescalation in tensions could be ‘fragile.’
“’It’s very likely that the Iranian response to the death of Qasem Soleimani will play out over weeks, or months or perhaps even years,’ Shapiro said, adding that Iran has a network with the capability to attack U.S. and Israeli targets in the Middle East region.
“’We shouldn’t believe that the accounts are completely settled,’ he warned…
“While both Iran and Trump have been ‘very tough with their rhetoric,’ they have signaled that they both want to deescalate — appearing to be ‘pointing to actions that are more in the diplomatic and economic ground,’ pointed out Lincoln Bloomfield, chairman emeritus at the Stimson Center.
“’They needed to save face — Iran needed to show its people they punched back after the loss of their general, but they did it in a way that didn’t provoke war. I think President Trump is well known, that he does not want war either,’ he told CNBC on Thursday…”