by Michael Snyder, End Of The American Dream:
We are closer to the unthinkable than we have ever been, but I have noticed that concern about global war has fallen to an exceedingly low level in the western world. Many people are just having a good old time as if they didn’t have a care in the world, and meanwhile global leaders on all sides are dragging us to the brink of destruction. During World War III, more people could die than in all of the other wars that have ever been fought in human history combined. Unfortunately, only a very small fraction of the population is actively trying to prevent such a cataclysm. By the time most of the population finally wakes up, it may be too late.
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The war in the Middle East has been heating up for months, and now it appears that we have almost reached a critical turning point…
Months of relentless exchanges between Israel and Lebanon’s militant group Hezbollah have seen mass civilian evacuations and widespread death, injury and destruction.
The violence has worsened since early June, accompanied by increasingly heated rhetoric. Both sides have prevented the tit-for-tat attacks from escalating into a full-blown war, recognizing the likely catastrophic consequences. The question is whether this fragile containment can hold in the future.
One U.S. official that was asked about this says that it is “a miracle” that all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah has not already erupted…
“The fact that we have managed to even hold the front for this long has been a miracle,” a senior US official said, referring to the US’ efforts to keep the Israel-Hezbollah attacks from spiraling into an all-out war.
“We’re entering a very dangerous period,” another senior Biden administration official said. “Something could start with little warning.”
To say that we are entering a very dangerous period is a major understatement.
The moment that the IDF crosses the border into Lebanon, there will be all-out war.
On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged that Israeli troops are going to be moved north for the coming confrontation with Hezbollah…
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu indicated in a television interview on Sunday that he intends to move some of the country’s forces to the northern border to fight the Lebanon-based military group Hezbollah. Were it not for the war in Gaza, that conflict might have already been capturing the world’s attention. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant is also visiting Washington this week in part to discuss the implications of that escalation with US officials.
Originally, it was my assessment that this showdown would occur in the fall.
But it may happen a little bit earlier than that.
We shall see.
In any event, Hezbollah is pledging that there will be war “with no restraints” once Israel attacks…
The Iranian-backed Hezbollah terror group overnight Saturday threatened to wage war against Israel “with no restraints.”
In a video message, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said, “In case an inclusive war is imposed on Lebanon, the resistance will fight without restraints, without rules, without limits.”
The minute-long clip then shows footage of various sites in central Israel, along with their GPS coordinates.
“Whoever thinks of war against us, will regret it,” the video ends.
Hezbollah possesses an enormous arsenal of highly sophisticated missiles, and one Biden administration official is openly admitting that Iron Dome batteries will likely be “overwhelmed” when all-out war erupts…
“We assess that at least some” Iron Dome batteries “will be overwhelmed,” said a senior administration official.
An Israeli official said that would be more likely if Hezbollah conducted a large-scale attack principally using precision guided weapons, which could be challenging for the system to defend against. Hezbollah has been stockpiling precision guided munitions and missiles from Iran for years, which Israel has repeatedly raised concerns about.
Hezbollah also possesses an army of approximately 100,000 fighters, and soldiers from other parts of the Middle East are already pouring into southern Lebanon to bolster their ranks.
And once all-out war breaks out between Israel and Hezbollah, it is unlikely that Iran would remain on the sidelines for long…
The top US military officer warned on Sunday that any Israeli military offensive into Lebanon would risk an Iranian response in defense of the powerful Hezbollah terror group there, and that US forces would be challenged to bolster Israel’s air defense umbrella.
Air Force Gen. Charles Q. Brown, chairman of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Iran “would be more inclined to support Hezbollah” than it does the Hamas terror group in Gaza, “particularly if they felt that Hezbollah was being significantly threatened.”
What would a cataclysmic conflict between Israel and the combined forces of Iran and Hezbollah look like?
And would the United States be pulled into such a conflict?
Most Americans are not even considering such questions.
But over in Israel, there is a growing consensus that a final showdown is inevitable. The following comes from a recent editorial in the Jerusalem Post…
In the last couple of weeks, it has become clear that a war with Hezbollah is inevitable. It has no longer become a conservation of “if” rather than “when.”
Since October 8, the day after the devastating Hamas massacre, Hezbollah has attacked Israel every day and has been doing so every day since. The group has fired over 5,000 rockets, anti-tank missiles, and explosive-laden drones toward the northern border, forcing 60,000 Israelis in the North out of their homes and turning them into displaced people in their own country with no end date on when they should be going home.
According to senior officials in Israel, the countdown to a potential war with Hezbollah has begun, and Israeli officials have said they have been left with no other choice.
As I have been warning for a long time, this thing in the Middle East is going to get really, really bad.
Meanwhile, an extremely alarming incident in Crimea that involved U.S.-supplied ATACMS missiles has brought us even closer to a direct military conflict with Russia…
The Kremlin on Monday directly blamed the United States for an attack on Crimea with U.S.-supplied ATACMS missiles that killed at least four people and injured 151, and Moscow formally warned the U.S. ambassador that retaliation would follow.
The war in Ukraine has triggered the biggest confrontation between Russia and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, and Russian officials have said that the conflict is entering the most dangerous escalatory phase to date.
But directly blaming the United States for a deadly attack on Crimea – which Russia annexed in 2014 and now considers to be Russian territory although most of the world considers it to be part of Ukraine – is a step further.
Russian children were killed by missiles that we produced, and those missiles were delivered by systems that we provided, and Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov is warning that there will be “consequences” for the United States…
The Kremlin has accused the U.S. of ‘killing Russian children’ after a Ukrainian attack on occupied Crimea with long-range missiles supplied by Washington and said there will be ‘consequences’.
Moscow has summoned the U.S. ambassador to issue a formal warning, while Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov issued a public statement slamming the U.S. for ‘barbaric’ strike on Sevastopol, a strategic port city on the Black Sea.
‘The involvement of the United States, the direct involvement, as a result of which Russian civilians are killed, cannot be without consequences,’ said Peskov.
So what will those “consequences” look like?
At this point, we don’t know.
Hopefully the Russians will not do anything too dramatic.
But if both sides just continue to escalate matters, it is just a matter of time before we reach a point of no return.
You can only flirt with war for so long before you get burned.
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