Israel already at war with Hamas in Gaza has taken on its mortal enemy, Iran, threatening the security and stability in the entire Middle East region. This will also have an impact worldwide as evidently the price of oil already started soaring from the latest fallout of the Iran-Israeli conflict.
Understandably, Israel had wantonly begun the war when its defence forces on Friday carried out sudden massive air strikes mainly targeting Iranian nuclear installations and military bases that killed at least 78 people including the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Hossein Salami, the chief of staff of the armed forces, Mohammad Bagheri and a number of prominent Iranian nuclear scientists.
In retaliation, Iran launched waves of missile attacks targeting Israeli military and air bases in which three people were reportedly killed and dozens injured.
This war has every possibility to escalate as the US is most likely to be involved if its interests are to come under Iranian targets. It seems likely because Iran believes the US has tacitly supported or condoned Israeli attacks on Iran though the Trump administration has made it clear distancing itself from the Israeli onslaught and said that Israel acted alone. The US also insisted on continuing nuclear talks with Iran aimed at limiting its ability to build a nuclear weapon.
Despite US denials there have been widespread fears that Iran could launch attacks on US targets across the Middle East. The US thinks such attacks are a possibility but has withdrawn some personnel from the region. The US has special forces' camps in Iraq, military bases in the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Bahrain and diplomatic missions across the Middle East.
There are also Iran's proxy forces like Hamas and Hezbollah active in the region to support Iranian military. These Iranian proxy forces have long been fighting Israeli forces. But they have, however, been severely weakened by almost two years of fighting with Israel. For instance, Hezbollah, Iran's most powerful regional proxy, had most of its senior leadership killed in recent Israeli attacks.
This time Israel precisely targeted Iranian nuclear installations citing they could pose real security threat to the Jewish state as it believes Iran could produce a nuclear weapon in a very short time. But Israel is widely acknowledged to have nuclear weapons although it has never publicly admitted it. Meanwhile, it is said that Iran has enough fission material for 15 nuclear bombs.
But Iran had signed a landmark nuclear agreement with the US and five others in 2015, which hindered its progress towards building a bomb. President Trump during his earlier term withdrew from the deal describing it as 'one-sided' in 2018. That US withdrawal has given Iran opportunity to increase its nuclear enrichment again.
Now the global leaders particularly the US leadership should intervene in order to de-escalate the Iran-Israeli latest conflict before it spreads to other parts in the region.
