"'The intelligence community is vast, but so are the number of priorities assigned to its staff,' said Norman Roule, former national intelligence manager for Iran and senior adviser to the Counter Extremism Project. 'Absent steady policymaker demand, the system moves resources — and demands on our partners — to targets that are perceived to have greater policymaker interest.'"

“... Edmund Fitton-Brown, a senior adviser to the Counter-Extremism Project, a transatlantic thinktank and advocacy group, said it was predictable that the Houthis and other groups would make such threats. “We shouldn’t read too much into the rhetoric … the Palestinian groups do not have the capability to escalate outside the [occupied] West Bank, while the Israelis have been so successful in last couple of weeks that I don’t think Lebanese Hezbollah can come to Iran’s defence.” Hezbollah, the most powerful of Iran’s proxies and the keystone of the coalition, is reeling from the Israeli assassination campaign. The group has lost nearly 500 fighters since it started firing into Israel in support of its ally, Hamas, last October and was then drawn into a prolonged war of attrition.”

“Iran had long been saying it would happen, and on Tuesday the regime in Tehran got serious. Less than a day after Israel began its ground offensive in Lebanon, the Islamic Republic said it fired 200 rockets towards Israel. Sirens blared across the country, and according to Israeli forces, 180 rockets were intercepted. […] However, Hans-Jakob Schindler, senior director of the international Counter Extremism Project and head of the office in Berlin, does not believe that an escalation is inevitable. "We are currently in a serious spiral of escalation, but one that can be ended at any time by one of the sides - Israel, Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas," Schindler told the Tagesspiegel. The picture in the region is complicated: some states sympathize with the Palestinians, some have problems with the militias supported by Tehran or are more or less neutral towards the situation.”

"Edmund Fitton-Brown, a senior adviser at the Counter Extremism Project and formerly UKs ambassador to Yemen, echoed these apprehensions, cautioning about the additional dangers posed by the Houthi rebels in Yemen, which form another component of Irans "axis of resistance that might expand the already tenuous situation across the Middle East."

"Edmund Fitton-Brown, Senior Advisor to the Counter Extremism Project and former Ambassador of the UK to Yemen, told MailOnline: 'Any successful upgrade of Houthi capabilities would also likely draw a kinetic Israeli response.'"

CEP Senior Director Dr. Hans-Jakob Schindler quoted: “Tensions in the Middle East are reaching a new high. Terrorism specialist Hans-Jakob Schindler analyses the possible effects of the Israeli counterattacks on Lebanon and outlines scenarios for the future. What is Iran doing? Who needs to intervene urgently now?”

CEP Senior Advisor Edmund Fitton-Brown: "Edmund Fitton-Brown, Senior Advisor to the Counter Extremism Project and former Ambassador of the UK to Yemen, told MailOnline early Wednesday that the claims are 'very concerning if true' and appear 'credible' so far as Iran and Russia are 'locked in a rejectionist-disruptor embrace'."

CEP Senior Advisor Edmund Fitton-Brown: "In my first analysis and opinion piece on the so-called Axis of Resistance, I set the scene by describing Iran’s 45-year trajectory from the Khomeini revolution to its current challenge to the West and the Rules Based International System (RBIS). In this piece, we will begin working our way through the range of proxy militias that are supported and coordinated by Iran and challenge Iran’s enemies in the theatres in which they are active. The Yemeni Houthis are a great place to start because of the immediacy of the threat that they pose to international shipping in the Red Sea and, therefore, to the global economy. As a former UK Ambassador to Yemen (2015–2017), I have written this piece from a more personal point of view."

CEP Senior Advisor Edmund Fitton-Brown writes: "Iran has defined itself in opposition to Israel, the United States, and the wider West since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Over the course of half a century of complex regional and global events, the clerical regime’s hostility and determination to “resist” has never abated, even when Iran finds itself naturally on the same side as the US in a given conflict. For example, when the American-led coalition invaded Iraq in 2003 to drive out Iran’s deadliest enemy, the Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein, and with the partially articulated intention of giving Iraq’s Shia majority the decisive voice in the country’s government, it only took Iran a matter of weeks to start orchestrating the killing of US and British soldiers."

"Edmund Fitton-Brown, Senior Advisor to the Counter Extremism Project and former Ambassador of the UK to Yemen, told MailOnline this evening 'it could all very easily spiral out of control'.

'In essence, I think Iran and Israel would both prefer to avoid escalation out of control,' he said.

'But Iran (and Hezbollah) both want to be seen to respond to the Israeli assassinations.

'Calibrating such responses in such a way as to save face and yet avoid escalation gets more difficult with each successive round of skirmishing.

'The US is also part of this picture, seeking both to restrain Israel and to deter Iran,' he said."