The World Today

The Middle East and War, what defines a Big War and a small-scale conflict on the rim of war. If you think about it we have the small-scale conflict, the use of Battle Field weapons and Planes by Israel and Rockets by Hezbollah but so far no land and sea invasion of Lebanon by Israel and no actual action by Syria and Iran just lot of dark warnings to Israel of what might happen. Lets look how all this started and where the West was looking at the time. A long time ago, less than two weeks ago the West was more concerned about North Korea and Iran.

In the end the Rockets of North Korea where some what a damp squib, but it still gave problems for China, the USA was not happy and Japan even less so, the missiles did drop in the Sea of Japan and the USA wanted China to reign in North Korea. The whole episode was placed in front of the UN Security Council, and the world waited, also at the same time the USA and the European Union had made an offer to Iran, if the Country did not try to develop nuclear missiles it would gain some advantages from the West. The day the answer was meant to arrive the Middle East erupted. The World was know focused on Israel and Lebanon, the Paris of the Middle East.

At Present we have North Korea, Iran, Syria, as an undemocratic axis whose main policy seems to annoy the West and the United States in Particular, Iraq is an on going problem, that allows Iran to cause problems for the United States and the UK when it is placed under pressure. Thus as of writing this article, we have a small scale conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, the Western countries are split, the USA and UK on the whole are supporting Israel, France, Italy and Russia see the reaction of Israel as over the top in contrast to the perceived attack. The UK is sending out HMS Illustrious in case we have to get our people out of Beirut, according to the Sunday Times we have about twenty five thousand people there. As of writing this article the Foreign Office are in talks to make sure should we start taking people out it is done without getting shot at by any one.

What are the next steps and what is in the interest of Lebanon, it has been argued that if one thinks in the long term this might be an opportunity to smash Hezbollah, free Lebanon to be the Paris of Middle East, stop Iran from flexing its muscles in the area and make her understand that this is a new western resolve, it either plays by the rules of the International Order and the benefits of being part of the system or else, ten years down the line does the World want to be faced by a nuclear Iran and like North Korea not really with much options on how to deal with her, what if ten years down the line, Iran should make a credible threat to Israel, two nuclear powers in the area that gives the World its Oil, that is a freighting prospect.

At the G8 Summit in St Petersburg, a communiqué has been released that places the fault at the feet of the Hezbollah and calls for restraint from Israel. The next few days should tell us if we have a low level local conflict or a regional war that drags in both Syria and Iran, any attack on Israel by these would bring in the USA. If this happened and Iran caused more complications in Iraq this would lead to further problems for the USA and the UK. Low Level conflicts lead to deaths on both sides, a Regional War could lead to the deaths of Hundred of thousands on both sides, time will tell….