The Middle East: Ground Zero for Possible Global War?

The UN Charter’s preamble explained that “the scourge of war…twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind” — referring to two global wars.

Is a third one coming at a time when today’s super-weapons make earlier ones seem like toys by comparison? 

Will the curse of Middle East oil escalate new millennium wars? Oil is a strategic source of world power. Controlling it is a way to control nations.

Middle East countries have over half the world’s proved reserves. Regional resource wars aim to control them.

Preemptive US wars have nothing to do with protecting national security at a time when the nation’s only threats are invented, a phony pretext to smash one nation after another in the Middle East, Central Asia and North Africa, threatening others elsewhere.

Endless war in Syria rages. Israel is as war with the Syrian Arab Republic without declaring it — terror-bombing sites in the country time and again on the phony pretext of an Iranian threat that doesn’t exist.

Russia’s envoy to Damascus Alexander Yevimov slammed the Netanyahu regime, calling its terror-bombing strikes “provocative and very dangerous for the situation in Syria,” adding:

IDF attacks target “areas deep into Syria…even in residential areas in Damascus…civilians becom(ing) victims of” Israeli aggression.

Beside a flagrant “violation of Syrian sovereignty and the real threat to the lives of innocent people, all of this increases the possibility of a conflict with Syria and runs counter to efforts to achieve stability and a political settlement.”

Moscow reportedly warned the Netanyahu regime not to impede ongoing efforts by Syrian and Russian forces to liberate Idlib province and surrounding areas from US/Turkish supported jihadists.

On Wednesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov affirmed the right of Syria forces to combat “terrorists on its soil in Idlib.”

He accused Turkey of failing to “neutralize” jihadists in Idlib, breaching its Sochi agreement obligations.

According to Russia’s National Defense Management Center director Mikhail Mezentsev, US, NATO, Turkish and Israeli heavy and other weapons used by jihadists are found in areas liberated by Syrian forces.

Russia’s Defense Ministry criticized the Erdogan regime for deploying troops and heavy weapons in Idlib — on the phony pretext of defending Turkish security, facing no cross-border threats.

For the second time in a week, US/Turkish supported jihadists downed a Syrian helicopter.

They’re using US/Turkish-supplied shoulder-launched, man-portable, surface-to-air Manpad missiles able to down low-flying aircraft and helicopters.

Like the US, NATO, and Israel, the Erdogan regime is an enemy of regional peace and stability.

Its war minister Hulusi Akar falsely said “Turkish troops will use force against everyone who does not abide by the Idlib cease-fire, including radical (jihadist) groups” Ankara supports, he failed to explain.

Separately, Erdogan said “(w)e will use whatever tools necessary on the ground and in the air, without any hesitation” against Syrian forces and its allies.

Separately citing local sources, Southfront reported an increased Turkish military presence in the western Aleppo countryside near the Al-Atarib urban center.

Syrian forces are four km away. A possible confrontation between both sides looms in the area.

Confrontation between these countries has been no more than skirmishes, not war neither country wants and Russia is going all-out to prevent.

Government forces “repelled… another Turkish-led attack on its newly-established positions in the towns of Kafr Halab and Miznaz. Turkish-backed militants sustained heavy losses in the failed attack,” Southfront reported.

According to Russia’s Defense Ministry, Turkish claims about killing dozens of Syrian troops are “false.” No evidence supports this.

Russia’s reconciliation center in Turkey added:

“Such statements about ‘the shelling attacks’ on the Syrian government troops by the Turkish armed forces and, all the more so, about casualties among Syrian servicemen as a result of them, have nothing to do with reality.”

Idlib is one of four Syrian deescalation zones established in 2017 — guaranteed by Russia, Iran and Turkey.

Three are now controlled by Damascus, the fourth in Idlib and surrounding areas where Syria’s liberating struggle continues — supported by Russia and Iran, opposed by the US, NATO, Israel, and Turkey, along with thousands of heavily armed jihadists they support.

On Friday, AMN News reported heavy Russian aerial attacks on (US/Turkish supported) jihadists near the Syrian/Turkish border, adding:

Syrian forces shelled their positions with “heavy artillery” fire in Idlib’s northwest. A counteroffensive by jihadists was foiled. Government forces continue liberating more areas.

Separately on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif denounced the Trump regime’s “cowardly” assassination of General Qassem Soleimani — a freedom fighter in the forefront of combatting the scourge of US-supported terrorism.

Interviewed by NBC News, Zarif explained that things “were very close to a war because the (Trump regime) initiated an act of aggression against Iran in a very…cowardly way,” adding:

“They couldn’t confront Soleimani in the battlefield so they hit him during the dark of night through a drone attack on a car carrying him on a peace mission, which is beneath any dignified way of dealing with this” — killing Iraqi PMU commander Abu Mahdi Muhandis and others at the same time.

Geopolitical know-nothing Trump was manipulated to believe that eliminating Soleimani would benefit US security.

Polar opposite was and remains true. US rage for dominating the Middle East increases the chance of greater war than already, risking global war if things spin out of control.

What’s unthinkable in the nuclear age is possible because of US rage to control other nations, their resources and populations.

Hardliners running US foreign policy and their subservient allies made today the most perilous time in world history.

The risk of possible nuclear war is real by accident or design.

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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.


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Articles by: Stephen Lendman

About the author:

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III." http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com. Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network. It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PM Central time plus two prerecorded archived programs.

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