The US State Department advised on social media Tuesday that Americans should immediately leave 14 countries in the Middle East amid the US and Israel’s escalating conflict with Iran. Assistant Secretary Mora Namdar posted on X that Americans should “depart now” from over a dozen nations “using available commercial transportation, due to serious safety risks.” The attached advisory lists Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, the occupied West Bank and Gaza, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. It’s highly unusual for the State Department to issue this kind of announcement through an assistant secretary on social media without issuing an official policy notice, as Al Jazeera correspondent Patty Culhane notes. The advisory does not appear to be fully reflected on the department’s website, which still showed Level 2 advisories for Egypt as of Wednesday morning, urging travelers only to “exercise increased caution” rather than avoid or flee the countries.…