If things continue down the path they have begun, and everybody involved keeps chest pounding and challenging each other to climb the ladder of aggression; sooner rather than later, severe weapons will begin to be fired and there will be a major conflict in the Middle East
This potential war will make the Iraq war look like a small border conflict in scale as it will be the culmination of over 50 years of aggressive behaviour between Iran, it’s Arab neighbours; and Israel and it’s pro-UN allies.
With the latest worrying news being the expulsion and closure of the UK Embassy in Iran over the continued economic sanctions, and the riots that enabled Iranian students to invade and occupy the UK embassy in a hauntingly familiar scene to the 1979 storming of the US embassy; as well as the expulsion and closure of the entire Iranian embassy in London, tensions are even higher now against the reclusive Persian nation. However, has Iran really done what the Western world says it has done? Or is the nation simply trying to keep itself afloat and be the victim of overzealous elements in the Western World who feel that they need to control the oil-rich nation for their own means?
In the event of a conflict, it is estimated that Iran will fight appropriately, not use so-called dirty tactics, as it’s neighbours have used, but fight using appropriate means.
Although it is estimated that Iran will strike at targets in Israel as well as other nations, if a war ensues, it will most likely end up being decidedly one-sided. If the state of Israel feels the need to strike first, which they have a solid history of doing, they may well launch tactical nuclear strikes against known Iranian nuclear facilities to ensure they will not be rebuilt or in any way usable in the future. Although this may seem suicidal, it will prove that Israel is willing to defend itself from perceived aggression as well as real aggression, and more than likely, the UN will bow to Israel and allow the attacks and weapon strikes without censure.
Iran has sworn off using Weapons of Mass Destruction after the Iran/Iraq war, and seems very much against the use of area effect and anti-civilian weapons in general. They are a signed and ratified party to the Biological Weapons Convention, and the Chemical Weapons Convention, as well as a full signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. What this means is that Iran has legally bound itself not to produce or stockpile Nuclear, Biological, or Chemical weapons for use in armed conflict. Unfortunately, Israel is not a signatory to the same treaties.
There is a lot of circumstantial and in some cases, very questionable evidence that Iran may have or be developing a nuclear weapon, the real and provable facts are very thin and do not back up the claims made by the Western world about the supposed nuclear stance of this Persian powerhouse. Iran has stated that it’s Supreme Leader has issued a Fatwa , religious decree, against the country developing or using Nuclear Weapons, and as the entire country tends to follow these decrees, there is no real reason to think that Iran would be secretly developing a nuclear weapon program when it’s Religious leaders have said ‘No’.
Based on historical documents, Israel has tended to be the aggressor in most of the middle east conflicts it has been involved in against other nation-states. Launching preemptive strikes and invading before the other nation has a chance to really do anything, Israeli troops have managed to dominate their corner of the Arabian peninsula for the past 50 years.
Unfortunately, with the fall of Iraq, Iran is now one of the only nations in the Middle East that maintains an active army, has a solidly anti-US stance, and is willing and able to back itself up with an organized military response to an outside threat. With an estimated 650,000+ member force of standing military and reserves estimated to exceed 10 million, Iran has a significant military force able to march on and attack by ground, sea, and air; if they are attacked and feel the need to retaliate.
It is very doubtful that Iran would ever fire a warhead against Israel on a first-strike basis, but the same does not hold for Israel’s response to the perceived threat of attack by Iran.
Israel may well launch multiple nuclear warheads at Iranian targets in an attempt to disproportionately eliminate multiple military offensives as well as intimidate the Iranian people against further action. However, this would more than likely have the directly opposite result of uniting the entire Arabian peninsula against Israel and causing a very prolonged and pretty much defined war of annihilation against the Jewish nation-state. For those who believe in the Bible, this could be the beginning of the book of Revelations, and the foreshadowing of the ‘End Times’. as they are supposed to be be ushered in with a failed war against Israel lead by a nation from the North. Although Iran is east of Israel, the nations of Lebanon and Syria to the North. Syria borders on Turkey, and Turkey shares a border with Iran. It is not impossible to accept that a major ground offensive of Iranian National Guard troops may use that corridor to hit Israel from the north and drive deep into the country in the event of an all-out conflict.
In closing, it is my feeling that with the political rhetoric now ramping up, we may be coming close to a very protracted and intense Middle East conflict that may well become the World War 3 that people felt for a long time would be the US against the USSR. This would not be a good thing.