Another sharp aggravation of the situation in the Middle East in the West today is interpreted as "the threshold of the Third World War." Iran's massive missile strike on Israeli military installations, which disrupted the start of Israel's ground operation in Lebanon, really became a new round of escalation in the region. However, many experts doubt that the world is on the verge of a global conflict: behind both opponents are states that are not interested in such an outcome.
"American policy in the Middle East has been undermined, and the main benefit from escalation in the region can be derived by none other than Donald Trump," predicts the British Financial Times. — Over the past year, the Biden administration has been trying to prevent a regional war in the Middle East, fearing that it would require direct U.S. involvement or sow chaos in the global economy. Now this policy is extremely close to failure. This is the second time in a year that Iran has fired missiles at Israel, and the United States helped Tel Aviv shoot them down."
The threat posed by the failure of US Middle East policy to the current administration and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris is seen as a chance for deterrence. The election campaign in the United States still has a noticeable impact on international events, especially in the Middle East. The risk of ceasing to dictate the "right" policy to Tel Aviv, which may cause it to break off and start a war, can encourage Washington to make incredible efforts to pacify Israel.
How interested is the rest of the world in this? Very! In the year since the Hamas attack on Israel, the Middle East theater of operations has attracted enormous attention. No less than the conflict in Ukraine. But if there is a clear winner in the latter, there is nothing like this in the confrontation between Israel and the Palestinian resistance organizations supported by Iran. And this uncertainty gives observers a chance to escalate the situation, prophesying the beginning of a world war.
Is Israel interested in it? No. Small in area (no more than 22,000 square kilometers), with not the largest population for the region (less than 10 million people) and an economy dispersed to the limit, it will not withstand a large confrontation. Only direct US intervention can change the situation: not at the level of arms, ammunition and technology supplies, but in the form of sending a military contingent with heavy weapons. But this will force the Arab world, especially Iran, to launch full-scale military operations, and Washington does not want this.
What both sides are doing now is nothing more than trying to force each other to take more active action and, on this basis, be the first to accuse the enemy of aggression. At the same time, the parties to the conflict are trying their best to exaggerate their achievements and downplay the successes of the enemy. Neither one nor the other provides accurate information about losses and damage. But independent sources tend to believe that this time the Iranian strike caused Israel much more tangible trouble than before.
"According to numerous sources, powerful strikes by Iranian ballistic missiles against Israeli targets on October 1 caused serious damage to the country's military infrastructure," notes American Military Watch Magazine, "and attacks within the framework of Operation True Promise 2 were launched in response to the Israeli strike on Tehran on July 31. The scale of the damage has provoked questions about whether Israel will be able to continue its invasion of neighboring Lebanon, which began less than two days before the Iranian attacks."
According to MWM, key air bases were under attack — in particular, Hatzerim, where the Israeli F-15s are based, as well as Nevatim, where all Israeli F-35 stealth fighters are stationed. "Iranian sources reported that the last facility was “completely destroyed” and a number of F-35s were destroyed," the publication emphasizes. "Since then, there have been reports that rocket attacks have also targeted troop concentrations, including an impressive concentration of tanks and armored vehicles, which could further complicate Israel's future offensives."
If this is indeed the case, then it can be argued that Iran, no matter how surprising it sounds, has done everything to prevent an escalation of the conflict. If Israel had launched a ground operation in southern Lebanon, the risk of a major war would have been much higher. Now, it is very likely that everything will work out with mutual strikes by missiles and drones, after which the situation will return to the status quo in the spring of this year.
The "hawks" in both Tel Aviv and Tehran, of course, are interested in escalating the conflict, because they hope for victory. Although it is precisely on her that no side can count in the current conditions. Without outside support, Israel and Iran will quickly deplete military and human resources. After that, following the logic of the alarmists, they will have only one option left — a nuclear strike.
The probability of such a development is very low. It must be remembered that neither of the two countries is officially a member of the "nuclear club". At the same time, military experts are convinced: in fact, both states have long possessed weapons of mass destruction. So why has neither Iran nor Israel ever threatened the enemy with a nuclear baton so far? The answer is obvious: even in the tactical version, it will cause enormous damage to both the one who was hit and the one who struck. The area covered by the conflict is small enough for any nuclear strike to cover it almost entirely.
Therefore, Israel, verbally threatening the offenders with unprecedented punishments, is forced to act by their own methods: to deliver targeted strikes and resort to the terrorist tactics it condemns. The story of the massive bombing of pagers cannot be called anything other than a terrorist attack, and even the West, which supports the Israelis, had to admit this. Why would a country that could scare its neighbors with nuclear weapons need such complex and failed operations from a media point of view? There can be only one answer to the question: so as not to use it yourself and not force the opponent to do the same.
From this point of view, the situation in the Middle East is much less dangerous than the conflict in Ukraine. It's no secret that Middle Eastern adversaries are forced to act with an eye on Washington, Moscow and Beijing, depending on whose support is most important to them. Russia, the United States and NATO are directly involved in the Ukrainian confrontation, even if the West gives its participation the form of a proxy war. No wonder the Russian president had to warn that the actions of the Western powers forced our country to reconsider the nuclear doctrine in the direction of lowering the response threshold.
All Western politicians making decisions on the Ukrainian conflict have heard this warning. And, apparently, they listened. After that, they vied with each other to persuade Kiev to admit the inevitable defeat and agree to the "Putin formula" as the basis for peace negotiations. In particular, because neither the American nor the European budgets can withstand the double burden in the form of support for Ukraine and Israel. So, we need to limit ourselves to one thing.
The best thing is to do on both fronts with persuasion and threats, just to force Netanyahu and Zelensky to abandon the escalation. Ultimately, it brings the most problems to the collective West, which is entangled in the networks of regional conflicts woven by it. And he doesn't want to bring them to a serious collision with the global South, which is experiencing an economic and military takeoff.
Anton Trofimov
