DThe UN mission in Iraq warns: “The Middle East is at a critical point.” The conflict in the Gaza Strip, armed conflicts elsewhere – all of this could lead to a “conflagration”. Saturday's urgent words were preceded by rocket strikes at the Ain Al Asad air base in western Iraq. An Iraqi soldier and several American soldiers stationed there were injured in the attack, which is believed to be carried out by Shiite militias loyal to Iran. Tehran's Iraqi comrades-in-arms have increased their attacks on the American military in the wake of the war in the Gaza Strip. Washington launched a high-profile counterattack at the beginning of January and killed a militia leader in a drone strike.
The Ain Al Asad attack was not the only incident during a weekend that brought the region another step closer to conflagration. The most serious was reported in the Syrian capital Damascus: According to Iranian sources, five “military advisors” from the ranks of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard were killed there on Saturday in an air strike attributed to Israel. Among them was the head of the Quds Force intelligence service responsible for Syria, the elite Revolutionary Guard force responsible for foreign operations. Strong condemnations and threats immediately came from Tehran. President Ebrahim Raisi said the “continuation of such criminal and terrorist actions” would “not go unanswered.”
Chances of war higher than before
The confrontation with the “Axis of Resistance” that is loyal to Iran and hostile to Israel already has many locations beyond the Gaza Strip. Large parts of the region have long been gripped by a smoldering fire: the attacks on shipping in the Red Sea by the Houthi rebels, supported by Tehran, have drawn the United States deeper into the conflict, whose military has also attacked targets in Yemen several times in recent days again on the weekend. Fighting has been going on daily and with increasing intensity on the Israeli-Lebanese border for months. The Israeli military is now carrying out attacks on leaders of the Iran-loyal Hezbollah or its Palestinian allies Hamas, even far beyond the border. On Saturday, just hours after the Damascus airstrike, a car was attacked by a drone near the city of Tire. Two Hezbollah members were killed, according to the Shiite organization and the Lebanese state press.
The mechanics of escalation set in motion by Hamas's monstrous terrorist attack on October 7 appear to be difficult to stop. Despite regular affirmations of wanting to avoid an all-out major war, the region is constantly moving in this direction – between the guard rails of behavioral patterns and reflexes practiced over decades, from retaliatory strike to retaliatory strike like a perpetual motion machine of escalation on autopilot. Even an Iranian diplomat, whose leadership promotes the terror of Hamas, the Houthis and Hezbollah, recently used the image of sleepwalkers who, with their eyes open, staggered into a major war.
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