Chance (21 Jan 2024)
""An Insane Scale of Cross-Border Conflict in the Middle East" - Wars and Rumors of Wars"


 
Hello John and Doves,
 
"The Middle East is boiling."
Middle East Boils: "We Will Strike Iran" Says Nuclear Pakistan - Recalls Ambassador to Tehran (vid) - WarNews247
 
Iran is definitely on the move.
 
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard are in Yemen in command of the Houthis now and Iran attacked Pakistan territory and Pakistan (a known nuclear country) struck back.  And Iran missiles struck Iraq and the Iraqi government isn't happy.  Things just moved to a new level in the Middle East.
 
Iran and Pakistan have both recalled their ambassadors.  .
 
Iran certainly isn't being subtle..hiding behind proxies like it was.  This is new.
 
"Commanders and advisors from Iran's elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps are on the ground in Yemen and playing a direct role in Houthi rebel attacks on commercial traffic in the Red Sea."
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard deployed in Yemen | Semafor
 
And Iran sent missiles into Pakistan claiming they were targeting "two strongholds of the Sunni militant group Jaish al-Adl.."  According to Pakistan this attack killed two children and was "an unprovoked violation of its airspace".  Pakistan retaliated.  
Iran missile attack: Pakistan condemns deadly strike on its territory as tensions spike across region | CNN

Pakistan launches retaliatory airstrikes on Iran after Tehran attack : NPR
 
"The Middle East is blowing up.  More militias and militaries are launching attacks against more countries, for more reasons, than the region has seen in decades - by some measures, in more than a century, since the breakup of the Ottoman Empire during and after the First World War."
 
Many of these recent strikes and incursions from the region's most largest, most violent, and contentious current war - the one between Israel and Hamas.  But others are only peripherally related, if at all.  And a few are downright puzzling."
 
"In any case, the list amounts to what Charles Lister of the Middle East Institute calls "an insane scale of cross-border conflict."  
 
So what's going on - Wars and Rumors of Wars?
 
Israel attacking Gaza and Lebanon.
 
Hamas and Hezbollah attacking Israel.
 
Jordan and Iran attacking Syria.
 
Iran attacking Iraq.
 
Yemen's Houthi's attacking ships in the Red Sea.
 
U.S. and Britain attacking Houthi's in Yemen.
 
Iran attacking Pakistan. (with ballistic missiles and drones)
 
Pakistan attacking Iran.  (with Air Force and artillery)  (So they've cancelled their joint naval war games now.)
Pakistan-Iran strike: The reason the Middle East is blowing up.
 
And Biden's national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on September 29, 2023 that the Middle East was quieter than it's been in 2 decades.
 
"The Middle East is "an arc of failed or failing states.  Four countries are mired in civil war.  Egypt..is teetering on the brink of default (Egypt owes $29 billion in external debt that needs to be repaid next year), while Lebanon is enduring one of the worst economic crises in modern history.  The list of calamities goes on, and the Middle East only looks quiet if one ignores it.  But that is exactly what the Biden administration has tried to do."
 
"The Israeli-Palestinian conflict was ignored.  Key diplomatic posts were unfilled:  The administration didn't bother to appoint an ambassador to Egypt until this March.  Last year I asked an American diplomat to describe his country's Syria policy.  He shrugged and laughed.  His job, he said, was to keep the Middle East off Biden's desk, echoing words I have heard repeatedly from American officials since 2021."
 
"This was America's flawed conceptzia.  It thought expanding the Abraham Accords and reaching a truce with Iran would allow it to disengage from the Middle East (so America could focus on Europe and Asia).  But a conflict that America tried to ignore has now pushed the Middle East to the brink of a broader war, fueled by Iran and its proxies.  The new Arab-Israel security alliance is nowhere to be found:  Most Arab states are too weak to play a role in the crisis, leaving America to rush troops back to a region it wanted to leave.  "Their job was to keep the Middle East away from Biden's desk by supercharging all the 'good' tracks in the region, while pushing away the 'bad' stuff was how one acquaintance, who works on Middle East policy, put it shortly after the Hamas attack."
 
Today, the Middle East is back on Joe's desk - "with no plan for dealing with it."
Joe Biden’s Middle East Failure - POLITICO
 
Things can move quickly over there.  Going from bad to worse.
 
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem!
 
Maranatha!
 
Chance