The United States expects that Israel’s military response to Iran’s strikes will be limited in scope, a senior administration official and a source familiar with the intelligence told CNN.
There is US intelligence to suggest Israel is weighing a narrow and limited strike inside Iran because they feel like they have to respond with a kinetic action of some kind given the unprecedented scale of the Iranian attack, the second source said.
Israel has not given the US an official warning about what their plans may be and when they could occur, the senior administration official said.
“We would hope that they would give us some warning so that we're prepared to protect our personnel, not just military but diplomatic throughout the region,” the administration official said.
“But there's no guarantee they will give us they will give us a heads up and they know when they give us a head’s up, we're likely to again register our objection to whatever they're about to conduct.”
The official also said if Israel did not respond, the US is “confident that there will be de-escalation” and the situation would go back to the status quo.
“But any additional move now opens up a series of other possibilities, some of which are quite frightening,” the senior official added.