Analysis: Expanded war in the Middle East would be a disaster, but can still be avoided

Tensions grow every day that a large-scale war in the Middle East could start from the flames of the conflict between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

A new violent incident happens almost every day. On Thursday (4), for example, the United States launched an attack in Baghdad that killed a leader of an Iranian-backed militia, which Washington, in turn, blames for attacks against Americans in the region.

US troops in Iraq and Syria, tasked with keeping the Islamic State under control, have been attacked several times by rockets and drones from Iran's allies.

“We feel and fear this,” Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib told Christiane Amanpour of CNN about the increase in tension.

“We do not want any escalation in the war. We would not like a regional war, because it would be dangerous for everyone. Dangerous for Lebanon, dangerous for Israel and the countries around Israel,” she continued.

Still, fighting is intensifying between Israel and another pro-Iran group, Hezbollah, on the border with Lebanon.

In another alarming sign, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told US envoy Amos Hochstein on Thursday that time is running out to create a “new reality” on the border with Lebanon to allow residents to return to their homes.

However, Israel is suspected of being behind the fatal attack on senior Hamas leader Saleh Al-Arouri in the Lebanese capital Beirut, sparking fury among Hezbollah leaders who control the area where he was killed.

Still in the region, United States forces this week sank three vessels belonging to the Houthi rebels in the Red Sea after a series of attacks on commercial shipping. US Central Command said US helicopters were attacked first and acted in self-defense.

Meanwhile, the U.S. government and about a dozen allies launched a maritime task force to protect commercial ships in critical waterways in the area after some shipping companies sent their vessels on a longer and more expensive route around Africa.

Finally, a two-bomb attack this week near where former Iranian intelligence chief Qasem Soleimani is buried has further shaken the region and could increase domestic pressure on Iran's government for broader moves in the Middle East. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for this attack.

The only thing that could prevent such a disaster is that a wider conflict may not be in the vital national interests of any of the major powers in the area.

While the main states and extremist groups seem to be walking towards the edge of the abyss, there is still hope that the economic, political and military consequences of a further escalation in conflicts will be so serious that they will put an end to this movement.

One step away from war

Many of the region's most powerful countries and groups, including Israel, Iran and Hezbollah, may have a vested interest in a high level of tension, coming just one step closer to war.

The concern for the United States, however, is that all of this could trigger another conflict in the Middle East that could involve the Americans. It's a scenario that Joe Biden's administration is desperately trying to avoid, especially in an election year.

“There are no 'strategic drivers' for major regional or external actors to launch a regional war, as the objectives of such a conflict would not be clear and this would immediately disrupt significant political and economic stability,” commented Norman Roule, former manager of national information from the US to Iran, during Jake Tapper's program, CNN, on Wednesday (3).

Still, the expert highlighted that Iran and its allies have multiple incentives to maintain and even increase the intensity and frequency of current actions against Israel.

“The concern is that any of these activities will produce an event that requires retaliation or the involvement of other actors who then rely on each other, leading to the very conventional conflict that we all want to avoid,” he pondered.

However, the situation is very delicate, because rapid deterioration can happen at any time on any of the fronts. Lebanon's Hezbollah has thousands of missiles that can hit Israeli civilians, meaning heightened clashes could quickly get very dangerous.

A mass attack by Iran's allies against US forces would also create political and military reasons for President Joe Biden to take much more robust action than he is currently taking.

On the other hand, if a U.S. or allied ship in the Red Sea were to suffer serious damage, Biden would face similar choices. The entry of an Iranian destroyer into the Red Sea this week has raised the possibility of miscalculations with rival navies operating in close quarters in busy waters.

The scale and barbarity of both the Hamas operation and Israel's response, which pulverized vast civilian areas in Gaza, triggered a cascade of events embedded in the Middle East's already fragile borders.

The subsequent developments ended a period of relative calm in the region, during which the Trump and Biden administrations and their allies sought to establish closer relations between the Gulf states and Israel.

The ensuing tensions appear to have ended hopes in the White House for a tacit and informal reduction in antagonism toward Iran, although Biden's political enemies accuse him of being soft on the country and its nuclear program.

War thermometer

The interest of the main actors in avoiding conflicts can act as a “war thermometer”. Given the likely cost of a regional war and the global economic, military, and political repercussions it would trigger, each actor has good reason to avoid the cliff:

Israel

Israel is already involved in a war in Gaza, which its government says will last months. A large-scale conflict with Hezbollah could subject Israeli citizens to potentially much greater bombardment than the country's cities suffered in Hamas rocket attacks last year.

In this sense, the fatal attack against leader Arouri (involved by Israel, as a US official confirmed to CNN on Wednesday) may have been a gamble that would not bring a massive response from Hezbollah.

At the same time, however, while the rest of the world worries about an escalating conflict, Israeli leaders believe they are already involved in a regional war, given threats on multiple fronts.

U.S

You U.S are intensifying a strategy they have been using for weeks to try to stop things from getting out of control.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has traveled to the region again and faces growing pressure to ease tensions between Israel and Hezbollah, in a situation that has Lebanon (which Hezbollah dominates) fearing a catastrophe that could worsen the already fragile political, economic and humanitarian situation in the country.

Meanwhile, American forces in Syria, Iraq and at sea appear exposed. Regarding Iranian allies, the Biden administration appears to be trying to reestablish a level of deterrence without detaching itself from the combustible situation in the region.

The US government and its allies recently issued a statement warning Houthi rebels in Yemen of consequences if attacks on shipping continue in the Red Sea, a sea lane vital to the global economy.

Natasha Bertrand and Kevin Liptak, from CNN , reported on Thursday that the White House's patience is close to ending the rebels. But direct strikes against their land launch sites would not only draw allied forces into the conflict, they could also threaten a truce that has paused Yemen's civil war.

Thus, Joe Biden is in a delicate political situation. He is constantly accused by Republicans of being too soft on Iran and its allies. But any worsening of the regional situation could also conflict with opposition claims that the 81-year-old president lacks leadership capacity.

The danger for Biden is that the last 20 years have been filled with repeated failures in the US to impose its will in the Middle East. Talking about the power of the United States is easier than actually putting it into action.

Will

Already the Will may have more to gain from using its vast network of allied groups to inflict minor damage on Israel and the United States than from direct conflict.

A war could be militarily and economically destabilizing, increasing political pressure on the clerical regime, which has already increased following the cemetery bombings.

But there is also a danger that this political heat could force the hand of leaders who want a more aggressive stance abroad that is more likely to alleviate difficulties at home.

Fifteen months ago, Iran's clerics faced a wave of anti-government protests sparked by the death of a young woman in the custody of the country's feared morality police.

Vali Nasr, a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, told Becky Anderson of CNN on Wednesday (3) that he was very concerned about the current tensions.

Still, he said, “I don’t think the Iranians want an expanded conflict,” although some in Iran believe Israel wants to pull the country into direct confrontation.

“I think the calculation, at least among the Iranians, Hezbollah and perhaps other governments in the region, but not necessarily Israel, is that the United States does not want a bigger war. President Biden does not want a bigger war”, said Professor Nasr.

That said, the calculations could change if the US government fails to stop Israel from expanding the conflict.

The attack on the Hamas leader in Beirut, which the US said it did not know about in advance, therefore appears to be a risky move by the government of Israeli Benjamin Netanyahu.

The action could worsen increasingly risky relations with the US, after the White House demanded a reduction in the intensity of the Gaza operation, something that has been constantly denied.

Hezbollah

O Hezbollah is the most powerful political actor in Lebanon. It is effectively an extension of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. But although it has a huge arsenal of rockets aimed at Israel, its power could be significantly reduced in the event of a full-scale war.

A degraded Hezbollah would mean a significant diminution of Iran's regional influence. The group's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, warned on Wednesday that the death of Hamas leader Arouri would not go unpunished and that if Israel started a war in Lebanon, the answer would be “unlimited”.

But Bou Habib, the Lebanese foreign minister, told CNN who believed that the militia would not increase the intensity of the war with Israel.

“We have many reasons to think that this would not happen, that they – and we – do not want, as Lebanese, all of us, we do not want any war,” he said.

“Not that we can boss them around. We are not saying this, but we can convince them. And I think we are working towards that,” she concluded.