- Editorials
- Posted
Kassioun Editorial 1160: Is the Region Heading to an All-Out War?
The recent US strikes on Syria, Iraq, and Yemen have stimulated analyses such as ones that say our region is on the verge of an all-out war. It is not a world war, but it is a broad war that includes several countries in the region at the same time, against the US and its alliances, along with the Zionist entity. These analyses also propose that this war is possible even if there is no decisive American decision to wage it, but things could slide towards it as a result of gradual mutual escalation.
To discuss this proposition, and before expanding the scope of pondering it terms of time and location, it is necessary to pay attention to the form and type of the recent US strikes, because they are the basic factual data on which these propositions are built.
The closest thing resembling these strikes is the one that Trump carried out on April 7, 2017, with 59 missiles on the al-Shayrat Airport in Syria. It is known that the strike was reported in advance, so that it would lead to the fewest losses, and it would not result in uncalculated reactions. Meaning, it was a symbolic strike, with no military goal. Rather, the goal was political, which quickly emerged, when Trump attempted to use it to push for US withdrawal from Syria.
The recent strikes, at least as the numbers indicate, are militarily ineffective, similar to Trump’s strikes, and can be classified under the heading of “saving face”. However, this alone is not sufficient to answer the question: Is the region on the verge of an all-out war?
If we try to look at things from the US angle, what is quite clear is that the strategic goal within our region is comprehensive chaos based on blowing up from within a set of countries, primarily Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and even Turkey and Jordan. This would be in addition to deepening the existing chaos in Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon.
This is done using all available tools, starting with ISIS, deepening the socioeconomic crises, and security and military tensions and confrontations. The tools would also include detonating secondary contradictions in all their forms. All of this would be done against the backdrop of a fire that is ablaze in occupied Palestine, whose function is to keep the temperature high throughout the entire region, as that heat is a necessary catalyst in accelerating chaos reactions.
Within this vision, the scenario of an all-out war is not only an obstacle to the scenario of comprehensive chaos, but goes completely against it.
Of course, this does not mean that an all-out war is not an option, at least in theory. However, it is definitely a second and perhaps a third option, for two clear reasons.
The first reason is that there is no guarantee that an all-out regional war, in which the US is a direct party, will not turn into a world war. The second reason is that even if it does not turn into a world war, and despite the great harm and pain that the US can inflict on the peoples and countries of the region, what is certain in a case like this is that the US will not have any safe foothold, not only in Syria and Iraq, but in the entire region, and all its seas.
Does this mean that the probability of direct war is zero? Absolutely not. This is an option that the US can resort to when it is firmly convinced that the plan for comprehensive chaos, in the required form and size, will not be achieved.
