Larger War Predicted + Al Qaeda & Israel

A much wider war is a near certainty. The BBC is reporting this morning, "Syria crisis: UN launches largest ever aid appeal," that the United Nations estimates that by year's end the number of Syrian refugees will jump from 1.5 million to 3.5 million. Take a moment to consider this projection. Syria's civil conflict began during the Arab Spring of 2011. In the next six months Syria will produce more refugees than it did in more than two years. That's why the UN is trying to raise $5 billion.

And an argument can be made that this refugee estimate could be on the conservative side. It is clear now, based on press stories of the last couple of days, that Lebanon's Hezbollah is to be punished for its part in maintaining Assad in power. The problem here is that Hezbollah is an integral part of the Lebanese state. If you bleed Hezbollah, you bleed Lebanon. Today Jodi Rudoren has a story, "As Syrian Fighting Nears Border, Israel Considers Its Options," which makes clear that Israel is going to attack Hezbollah:

Israel continued to plan intensively for a third war in Lebanon, where it believes Hezbollah has amassed 60,000 rockets aimed in its direction. Military leaders say that they have learned the lessons of their 34-day battle with Hezbollah in 2006, and that the next round will be short, deadly and urban: one top general recently described Lebanese homes as having “a living room and a missile room” right next to each other.

When this happens, and if the reporting is accurate, there will be a lot of cognitive dissonance for Western consumers of information because Israeli soldiers will be fighting in alliance with bin Laden-inspired jihadists (as they are now in a more clandestine fashion). We in the West will be forced to ask ourselves questions that only seem to be voiced by outlets such as Alex Jones' Infowars.com. Why has Al Qaeda never directly attacked Israel? If one studies the timeline of Al Qaeda bombings one struggles to find any assault on Israel. The only thing that provides a tenuous connection is the Ghriba synagogue bombing in 2002. But it is unclear what the connection of the suicide bomber, Nizar bin Muhammad Nasar Nawar, was to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

A world war in the Middle East seems to be coming just when troops were to be pulled out of Afghanistan. Of course it doesn't have to be this way. But clearly the West and its allies in the Gulf cannot operate without war.