When does a regional war become a global war? What are the dangers of the present conflict in the Middle East for Europe?
When I got notification early this morning that I was being invited to discuss on air the risks of a second front opening and the Palestine conflict becoming a regional conflict, I was obliged to think through the developments of the past 48 hours, meaning both the genuinely encouraging and also the disheartening news from the region. For this nudge to do my job as public intellectual properly, I am indebted to WION, India’s premier English-language global broadcaster.
When the link becomes available later today or tomorrow, I will post it here. But given how rapidly events developing in Palestine outpace what forecasters are saying, I will record here and now what I believe are my special contributions to open analysis of the crisis.
This begins with an issue I introduced lately in my commentary to various news carriers, namely that the real danger is not so much a regional conflagration but the global conflagration that may follow just days later. This is because the Great Powers, meaning the USA and Russia, have military assets very close to the fighting and their level of mutual trust at the moment is zero.
In a sense, both of these global Powers are also regional players in the Middle East. The United States has a number of military bases in the Gulf States. It has troops stationed in Iraq and Syria, not to mention in fellow NATO member state Turkey. It also has sent the Gerald Ford aircraft carrier task force to the Eastern Mediterranean and a second carrier, the Dwight Eisenhower, is on the way, perhaps to the Red Sea – Persian Gulf, where it will directly threaten Iran.
For its part, Russia is prepared to defend its interests and the interests of its close partners, Iran and Syria, should they come under attack by U.S. planes from the aircraft carriers. As I mentioned several days ago, when still in Beijing on Wednesday Vladimir Putin announced the new permanent air patrol Russia has set up over the Black Sea. Its bombers are carrying Kinzhal hypersonic missiles that can reach and destroy the U.S. naval presence in the Eastern Mediterranean if so required.
But Russia also has assets in the Middle East that it developed substantially during its participation in the Syrian civil war, from 2015-2018 on the side of Bashar Assad’s government in Damascus. These are an air base in Khmeimim – Latakia, where 30 jets were stationed in the past and a naval base at Tartus, which supports the Russian fleet in the Mediterranean. At Latakia, the Russians maintain an electronic surveillance station that monitors all communications in the region.
Russia also is very close to the Iraqi government and has been ever since the Syrian civil war. Even at the apex of American diplomatic and intelligence activities in the Green Zone outside Baghdad, the Russians and Iraqis managed to establish a cooperation that the Americans knew nothing about. It was with the complicity of Baghdad that Russia maintained its air links with Syria by flying over Iraqi air space.
A further point that Western media have totally ignored is Russian relations with Hezbollah. Yes, Hezbollah is a cat’s paw of Iran. But for three years it also worked very closely with the Russian military during the Syrian civil war. Hezbollah actions on the ground to recapture territory for the government in Damascus were closely coordinated with Russian ground forces, including the Wagner Group, and more particularly with the Russian air force, which dominated the skies over Syria and inflicted punishing blows against the infrastructure and group formations of the Islamic State and other terrorist groups that were backed by the United States.
Yesterday morning, the threat of regional spread seemed to retreat. Two American hostages were released in Gaza by Hamas following negotiations held in Qatar, and subsequently the Rafah border crossing was opened to allow twenty trucks with humanitarian assistance to cross over from Egypt into Gaza. Both the hostage release and the passage of trucks were tokens of possible further negotiations, and it seemed reasonable to expect the Israelis to hold back their ground invasion into Gaza while these talks were ongoing. Delay to the ground invasion by itself would provide more time for the “international community” to mobilize pressure on the warring parties to declare a cease-fire and take us all back from the abyss.
Yesterday afternoon there was a less hopeful bit of news coming out of the gathering in Egypt convened by President Sisi between regional heads of state and European leaders. It turned out that the sides could not agree on a way forward. The Arab, Egyptian and other regional leaders wanted to agree a call for an immediate cease-fire, while the European heads of government resisted signing to that bit of humanitarian common sense and only spoke in support of Israel.
This morning’s news from reporters on CNN and other major Western channels still spoke of an imminent Israeli ground attack. Meanwhile Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Galant was sounding off about the war that he claimed Hezbollah was initiating from across the Lebanese border. Dark clouds appeared to be gathering once again.
A separate news item in this morning’s Financial Times helps explain the failure of European leaders to support the call for a cease-fire. In an interview, Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius, the Dutch justice minister, who is the front-runner candidate in the forthcoming elections to replace Mark Rutte as prime minister, warned that the Israel-Hamas war poses a threat to Europe because it is widening cleavages in society. She noted that “…it will get translated to our societies as well.”
Clearly the lady hasn’t a clue as to the real external threats to Europe that lie immediately ahead, and no doubt she is not alone among European leaders in this willful ignorance. Should the Israelis proceed with a ground invasion, the Arab neighbors may respond in a manner that follows the U.S. example, namely they will not participate militarily in the conflict but will impose economic sanctions against the European Union for its one-sided approach and for turning a blind eye to the acts of genocide that Israel is now committing against the Palestinian people in Gaza, which we all see on our television screens on major media every day. CNN, to its credit, shows us Palestinian doctors pleading for intervention to supply the medicines, the anesthetics, the fuel for generators that have all run out, leaving them helpless to watch the death of newborn infants, the injured and the sick.
Qatar has already warned Germany that it stands ready to cut off further shipments of liquefied natural gas to Europe, which would precipitate an enormous spike in prices and serious shortages of energy in Europe. How long will it be before the oil producers of the region declare an embargo on Europe for its stance relative to the blockade of Gaza and bombing of residential neighborhoods and hospitals?
Then, of course, there is the likelihood of a full-scale war between Hezbollah and the Israeli Defense Force in the event of a ground invasion.
These are the main points in the interview which I hope readers will find provides food for thought.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2023