The murder of Israeli rabbi Zvi Kogan, whose body was found in Dubai within days after he was reported missing in the United Arab Emirates, will likely reinforce the UAE's frustrations with Iran, former NATO Ambassador Kurt Volker told Newsmax on Sunday.
"I don't think it changes [the situation] fundamentally, but I think that there is one thing that's going to occur from this," said Volker, appearing on Newsmax's "Sunday Report" with former Defense Intelligence Agency officer and author of "Putin's Playbook" Rebekah Koffler. "It's going to reinforce the UAE's frustrations and irritations with Iran. That something like this would happen on UAE territory is not at all what they would want."
Meanwhile, the war in the Middle East is in a "very dangerous period" in which Iran will "try to see what it can get away with in the final months of the Biden administration," said Volker.
President-elect Donald Trump will come in and hold Iran accountable so before that happens, "we may likely see some escalation from Iran and their proxies in the next couple of weeks or months," he said.
Volker added that there is an "incredible double standard" that is applied to Israel, including with the International Criminal Court's warrants for the arrest of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"Israel actually does exercise restraint as best it can, but it is facing people who are constantly attacking," said Volker. "We have constantly, over the past year, underplayed the importance of Hamas holding American hostages, as well as Israeli hostages. Rather than telling Israel to exercise restraint and have a cease-fire, we should be working with Israel to go in and get those hostages out."
Koffler, meanwhile, commented on the news that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the launch of a hypersonic missile at Ukraine while responding to President Joe Biden allowing Ukraine to use Western weapons to strike into Russian territory.
Biden is "walking us into war with Russia that is potentially going to turn nuclear," she said. "The nature of this war — there's an escalation ladder and we're officially now on the next level on that ladder. And Putin said that the United States is de facto now at war with Russia."
It takes U.S. or NATO personnel to ensure that the ATACMS [Army Tactical Missile Systems] that are fired hit the right target, even if the button is pushed by a Ukrainian soldier, she added.
"This is exactly why Putin fired this," she said. "It feels and smells like an ICBM [Intercontinential Ballistic Missile] which is designed to wage nuclear war. That is a warning because the missile is dual capable of conventional or nuclear payload. So Putin just said to us, OK, today it's conventional, tomorrow it could be a nuclear payload. That's where we are at. That's where President Biden just walked us into."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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