That Burning Smell Might Be World War III Brewing In The Middle East

This is a brilliant article published in the Daily Mail, UK, 31st May 2007
By Andrew Alexander

There is something peculiarly horrific about the Middle East situation.

It is like watching a car crash in slow motion - of the sort beloved of Hollywood where cars, one after another, hurtle into tankers, igniting a huge inferno.

You get the horrible feeling that something like World War III is brewing in the Middle East.

The Lebanese army fights a new group of Islamic militants with weaponry supplied by Israel, which really means the U.S. There seems no limit to the number of increasingly militant groups being spawned in the region, each one more ferocious than the last.

Meanwhile, there is no let-up in Iraq. May went out with a bang, proving a deadly month for U.S. casualties, with 114 deaths.

In addition, we have the grim episode of British security men being abducted.

Hope flickers when the U.S. and Iranian ambassadors sit down to talk under the chairmanship of the Iraqi prime minister to see how peace might be brought to Iraq. The Americans complain that Tehran is supplying weaponry to Shia militants.

There is no progress as yet and it is hardly surprising. Iran fears U.S. encirclement, as it has done for many years. The American decision to strengthen its battle fleet in the region will not dissipate those fears. Only the U.S. leaving Iraq will satisfy Iran.

Here, there is an intriguing overlap. Most Americans want the same thing. Whether the U.S.
public and Iranian public get what they both want may depend on who are chosen as the next presidential candidates. Time is short.

In Britain's case, Gordon Brown (it is said) was never keen on the Iraq invasion and (it is said) will accelerate our withdrawal. We shall see. But that will still leave Afghanistan — another Iraq in the making — where Brown does not seem to want withdrawal. And General McNeill, commanding the U.S.-led Nato force in the country, talks of still being there in ten years’ time.

I can promise you, on my mother’s grave etc etc, that Western troops will have cleared out, or been cleared out, long before that. The general may contemplate another potential Vietnam with equanimity. American voters will not.

The presence of American troops and bases in Afghanistan adds logically to Iran’s fears of encirclement and claims Iran helps the insurgents. It is a classic, diplomatic vicious circle.

The first party fears encirclement and attack. The second party disclaims such a plan and uses hostile attempts to prevent it as proof that the first party is a real enemy. Thus may wars begin — and spread, as each side seeks allies.

We should face the fact that Israel’s behaviour remains the chief source of instability in the Middle East. When it is attacked from Lebanon or Palestine, its revenge is fierce, often indiscriminate, sometimes spectacular. The resultant civilian casualties are meat and drink to the terrorists’ propaganda.

Once an object for so much sympathy from the West, Israel has become arrogant, ruthless and apparently indifferent to the peace process.

There was a telling advertisement in the Times last week where a veritable army of architects and planners protested about their profession’s involvement in continuing to build illegal settlements on land appropriated from Palestine - "to obliterate the idea of a viable future Palestinian state".

The immense list of signatories is peppered with Jews, some practising in Israel itself.

We all know there is one power which can easily bring Israel to heel - the U.S. It shows no inclination whatever to do so. Nor, one fears, will the would-be presidential candidates promise to do it.

The car crash goes on.