At a high-level private briefing by a spokesman for the IDF this week, I asked about their assessment of the possibility that Iran might directly intervene in the conflict. He pointed to the fact that the US had moved two carrier battle groups into the region to act as a deterrent against Iran. But the arrival of the mighty USS Gerald R. Ford, the world’s largest warship, in the Eastern Mediterranean is primarily a defensive move. Since October 17 Iranian proxies across the region have fired missiles at US air bases in Iraq and Syria, wounding at least 20 American...