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Israel’s retaliatory strike on Iran has moved the world closer to war and a “nuclear holocaust”, says a defence expert, as tensions worryingly continue to build in the Middle East
Israel’s new attack on Iran is pushing us closer to World War Three and a “nuclear holocaust”, a defence expert has warned.
Tensions are rising ever higher in the Middle East with Israel striking an Iranian air base and a nuclear site near the city of Isfahan early on Friday morning. It was the latest tit-for-tat attack exchanged between the two countries.
Iran launched hundreds of drones, ballistic missiles and cruise missiles at Israel on April 13 with 99% claimed to have been intercepted by Israel’s own defences and in coordination with a US led coalition of partners. Iran was retaliating after Israel bombed Iran’s consulate in Damascus on April 1 killing seven members of the Islamic Revolution’s Guards Corps. A high-ranking commander and his deputy were killed during the attack.
It comes as Israel’s conflict with Hamas continues, leaving cities in Gaza in rubble and causing a humanitarian crisis. Professor Anthony Glees, a security and intelligence expert at the University of Buckingham, now fears we are being pushed closer to WW3 with the conflict in the Middle East.
“I think it possibly is (a step closer to WW3),” he told the Mirror. “Only a suicidal psychopath would wish the fighting between Israel and Iran to turn into World War Three and the nuclear holocaust that it would almost certainly lead to. Even Putin is reported to have told Netanyahu and Khameini to cool it. He doesn’t want the world to end right now although he is doubtless delighted at the instability in the region.
“It takes the eyes of the free West off what he’s busy trying to do in Ukraine and he’ll be pleased too that the US (and the UK and France) may deploy their anti-missile shield to keep Israel safe but are still refusing to do the same for his enemy Zelensky and the brave Ukrainian people.”
And Prof Glees believes that a world war is more likely to start through a gradual build up rather than a sudden strike. “World War Three is highly unlikely to start with a big bang, a Pearl Harbor or German invasion of Poland moment,” he continued. “Rather, it’ll be like the First World War, the result of a series of incremental steps, each more serious than the last, with nations feeling bound to pile into the fray even against their common sense.
“That’s why Biden and all America’s Allies are calling for de-escalation, like now this minute. They can see only too clearly how this could develop into a more general conflict, first of all engulfing the Middle East as a whole and then sucking into the toxic mess Russian ambitions in Ukraine and the Baltic Republics as Russia might decide to seize the advantage of a Western focus on the Middle East to start things along the whole of its borderland with the free European nations.”
While Prof Glees has also been surprised by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak ’s position over the relations between Israel and Iran. “What I’m struck by is how very little we know about the key factors in working out what is going to happen over the next few days. And by ‘we’ I must include, it seems, Rishi Sunak,” he said.
“Our Prime Minister has said this morning this is a ‘developing situation’ indeed rather bizarrely adding that ‘it would not be right for him to speculate until the facts are clear’. Indeed, once the facts are clear, Mr Sunak won’t need to ‘speculate’, he’ll know. It is of course deeply worrying that he does not know the full facts, given his access to US, UK and, we hope, Israeli intelligence.”
Israel’s latest response could be a “limp” face-saving response to Iran’s attack last Saturday, said Prof Glees, but he added he’s not convinced that is what is going on. “Netanyahu and Khameini are both wild cards, chancers and schemers, hard to predict. Each have a fundamentalist agenda. Iran to wipe out Israel, and Israel to wipe out the Ayatollahs who are committed to Israel’s destruction,” he said.
“My fear is that Netanyahu may not yet be sated even if the Ayatollahs are happy, for the time being, to scurry off the warpath. Sunak has also said this morning ‘it’s in no one’s interest to escalate’ but that only true if both Israel and Iran accept the point. If they don’t all bets are off.”
Iran is developing nuclear weapons and so that also plays a part in the threat to the region. “Certainly from Netanyahu and his far right Cabinet’s viewpoint now might be a very good time to demolish the regime of the Ayatollahs for once and for all. They do not yet have nuclear weapons and Israel does,” said Prof Glees.
“This puts Israel is a position of considerable strength right now, especially as Biden seems to have softened his hard stance against Israel and Netanyahu’s war of ‘mighty vengeance’ which has killed some 35,000 Palestinians. Also Biden has vetoed the UN Resolution which would bring a Palestine state to the UN, on the very understandable grounds that such a state would include a Hamas element which would of course be unacceptable to the West, given the Hamas atrocities of 7 October.”
And Prof Glees believes that the UK should prepare for the possibility of the Middle East conflict spreading. “In short, the Isfahan attack may easily become a further notch in a cycle of violence that can only end in all-out war, in the region and then spreading into Europe. No one in their right minds wants this, but we should prepare for the eventuality,” he said. “(David) Cameron has told the Israelis they’ve won twice over. The Iranian attack on Israel was decisively thwarted and the US and its Allies demonstrated their power to keep Israel safe. His ‘calm down, calm down’ message to Israeli is absolutely right in my opinion.”
