This was written by Michael Klare in the Spring of 2018. I've posted this a couple of times previously in other threads. It just seemed like, sooner or later, what Klare described was bound to happen. Or, the potential for this level of war was there, and these would be the players, etc., if the potential became real.
It's a long essay, I excerpted the section that sort of set the potential stage. Goes without saying, nobody wants this, but it just seems like some version of this has been the worst case potential outcome of something that started with the invasion of Iraq, or earlier. I take it the administration did not think "unintended consequences" of this order would result from offing Soleimani. And it's what Trump wanted. What a risk to take.
https://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176422/tomgram:_michael_klare,_the_road_to_hell_in_the_middle_east/
"Like the first two Gulf wars, the third could involve high-intensity clashes between an array of American forces and those of Iran, another well-armed state. While the United States has been fighting ISIS and other terrorist entities in the Middle East and elsewhere in recent years, such warfare bears little relation to engaging a modern state determined to defend its sovereign territory with professional armed forces that have the will, if not necessarily the wherewithal, to counter major U.S. weapons systems.
A Third Gulf War would distinguish itself from recent Middle Eastern conflicts by the geographic span of the fighting and the number of major actors that might become involved. In all likelihood, the field of battle would stretch from the shores of the Mediterranean, where Lebanon abuts Israel, to the Strait of Hormuz, where the Persian Gulf empties into the Indian Ocean. Participants could include, on one side, Iran, the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria,
Hezbollah in Lebanon, and assorted Shia militias in Iraq and Yemen; and, on the other, Israel, Saudi Arabia, the United States, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). If the fighting in Syria were to get out of hand, Russian forces could even become involved.
All of these forces have been equipping themselves with massive arrays of modern weaponry in recent years, ensuring that any fighting will be intense, bloody, and horrifically destructive. Iran has been acquiring an assortment of modern weapons
from Russia and possesses its own substantial arms industry. It, in turn, has been
supplying the Assad regime with modern arms and is suspected of
shipping an array of missiles and other munitions to Hezbollah. Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE have long been
major recipients of tens of billions of dollars of sophisticated American weaponry and President Trump has
promised to supply them with so much more.
This means that, once ignited, a Third Gulf War could quickly
escalate and would undoubtedly generate large numbers of civilian and military casualties, and new flows of refugees. The United States and its allies would try to quickly cripple Iran’s war-making capabilities, a task that would require multiple waves of air and missile strikes, some surely directed at facilities in densely populated areas. Iran and its allies would seek to respond by attacking high-value targets in Israel and Saudi Arabia, including cities and oil facilities. Iran’s Shia allies in Iraq, Yemen, and elsewhere could be expected to launch
attacks of their own on the U.S.-led alliance. Where all this would lead, once such fighting began, is of course impossible to predict, but the history of the twenty-first century suggests that, whatever happens, it won’t follow the carefully laid plans of commanding generals (or their civilian overseers) and won’t end either expectably or well.
(
Michael T. Klare, a TomDispatch regular, is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and the author, most recently, of The Race for What’s Left. A documentary movie version of his book Blood and Oil
is available from the Media Education Foundation.
Follow him on Twitter at @mklare1.)
