In 2009, an Israeli channel devoted to academic studies ran an interview with Ephraim Halevy, former head of Mossad, about his report on the scope for continuation of the global war on terror that Washington announced in 2001. He said that some American officials were capable of prolonging it for 25 years or more and that he personally termed it “World War III.” According to his report, it could last 10 to 20 years in the worst-case scenario.
Many specialists in strategic policy recognize that after 2001 and 9/11, the world shifted from one phase into another. This phase led the United States under Bush’s presidency to achieve a number of goals, most importantly controlling through alliances with NATO and Europe the most sources of power, natural resources and their passages, as well as preventing the development of a rival to America’s power and its incumbency as the most powerful polarizing force in the world. 11 years after the beginning of World War III, the battlefields are widening year after year, setting apart regional and international polarizations. Washington and its allies can neither resolve these battles, nor achieve the required results and aims.
A picture of American military, political and financial loss is apparent to all, from Afghanistan to Iraq to the loss of Pakistan. Analysts in Washington recognize that America’s first battlefront was in this region, plunging into World War III, reaching from Afghanistan (the American-Western invasion in October 2001) to Iraq (which a powerful British-American alliance invaded in 2003). The circle of war widened and moved in the direction of Pakistan, as a Washington ally.
The plan of these interventions was known to regional and international forces opposed to this war or complaining about Western military invasions. Indeed, Washington has to expand from Iraq to be rid of Syria and Iran and resistance forces in Lebanon and Palestine; these factions act as virtually the last forces opposed to this war that have announced their opposition to these invasions.
Therefore [Charles] Glaser, expert in strategic international affairs, is of the opinion that because of difficulties in achieving complete goals in Afghanistan and Iraq, Washington has shifted to Iran, Syria and their allies following the failure of the Israel’s war with Lebanon in July 2006, because that war formed one of the battlefronts of World War III — or the global “war on terror” as Bush, leader of that war, said. Some pamphlets of the Israeli National Security Council in the Halevy era indicated that Sharon’s annihilation of the West Bank in March-April 2002 was clearly aligned with the same war that Bush triggered in October 2001. Sharon had decided to terminate the armed Intifada in the Occupied Territories, so he mobilized more than 40,000 troops from the ground, sea and air forces, re-deployed them, and committed the massacre at Jenin. He also laid siege to the headquarters of Yasser Arafat, head of the Palestinian Authority, after shelling and destroying most of the surrounding localities in Ramallah.
As Israeli military analysts recognize, the area of this World War III remains in the Middle East because whoever controls the region, from Afghanistan to Syria, Iraq, Iran and Lebanon, will prevent the possibility of Russia and China developing the capability of transforming into great forces to rival and challenge the “greatest pole” of America.
In the same vein, Russian analysts specializing in international strategy acknowledge that Moscow and Beijing overtly support thwarting American-Western goals in this war with Syria and Iran to deter those two capitals, all with the aim of creating a global order that crumbles the American “single pole” policy.
Makes sense to me.