The Coming Conflagration
A very scary scenario from John Robb on where we’re heading.
This tension and confusion has now reached a tipping point, akin to the situation that preceded WW1. Nation-states, confused and locked into antiquated mindsets, are likely to stumble into a global war. To wit: Israel’s loss to Hezbollah and the US loss of Iraq to civil war puts both countries into an untenable strategic situation. Instead of blaming themselves for an inability to reach victory, they are priming themselves for a confrontation with the perceived ’source’ of the problem: Iran. As it stands right now, war with Iran is likely inevitable. It really doesn’t matter whether it is caused by a US (or Israeli) air campaign against Iran, an Iranian pre-emptive special operation, or a simple error: it’s on the way.
Seymour M. Hersh has a good behind the scenes description in the new yorker of the process leading up to the current Lebanon crisis.
It depends on an incredibly subjective assumption to claim that Israel “lost” the war against Hezbollah. Rather, Israel has managed to put a spotlight on the state-in-state situation in (southern) Lebanon and get the UN to take action by UN act 1701 – deploying a rather large contingent of UN troops. Unfortunately, Israel didn’t manage to finish the job squashing Hezbollah entirely.
The situation is scary, sure, but while I am by no means an expert on the subject, I have a hard time accepting the comparison with WWI.
This war is not one of nation states as John Robb tries to argue. Such argument is exactly what Bush is trying to make and JRobb seems to fallen in.
If there’s one hope we can have is that the Israelis and Americans by now will have learned that a airforce-only war against Iran is impossible, thus making any war whatsoever unlikely.
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