ARE we on the brink of a devastating war in the Middle East — one that could spiral in to World War Three?

Israel and Iran seem to be about to go head-to-head.

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For decades, since the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979, the Jewish state and the Islamic one have been at daggers drawn.

Iran’s ruling mullahs routinely chant, “Death to Israel” and deny its right to exist.

But until now they have only attacked Israel indirectly, by sending weapons and money to anti-Israeli terrorist groups such as Hamas in the Gaza Strip or Hezbollah in Lebanon.

These acted as proxies for Iran, enabling it to avoid a real war with Israel.

Since Israel bombed a clandestine meeting of Iranian military and terror chiefs in the Syrian capital Damascus on April 1, tensions between the two rivals have reached boiling point.

By decapitating the commanders directing Iran’s proxy war with it, Israel humiliated the key power brokers in Tehran.

If they don’t hit back, the regime’s control over their own people could be shaken.

Dictators who wobble in a crisis don’t keep their people afraid.

Israel has been waging its own clandestine struggle to sabotage Iran’s nuclear programme.

It wanted to stop the Iranians developing “The Bomb” which could turn their anti-Israeli chants into mass-murdering reality.

Because Israel and Iran have repeatedly marched to the brink then backed off just short of catastrophe, too many Western commentators are complacently assuming that the Ayatollahs — religious leaders in Iran — will only bark and not bite.

Here are the key five questions the world is asking . . .

Will tit-for-tat attacks satisfy Iran?: Some Western observers think Iran will confine itself to a tit-for-tat attack on an Israeli embassy somewhere or launch a cyber offensive and get Hezbollah in Lebanon to fire a few more missiles into northern Israel.

But Israel, and now America and Britain too, are more and more certain that this time Iran will attack.

Washington has told its diplomats in Israel to lie low.

Westerners across the Middle East could get caught up in any crossfire.

The West and Iran are arm-wrestling already

Mark Almond

Iran regards America and Britain as their main enemies behind Israel.

The Yanks are the “Big Satan” and we are the “Little Satan”.

Top US generals have been in Israel to coordinate Washington’s possible military responses.

British intelligence agents share information with the Israelis about common threats.

Remember, the Americans have been leading campaigns against Iran’s allies, the Houthis, in Yemen as well as against pro-Iranian militias in Iraq and Syria.

The West and Iran are arm-wrestling already.

Britain, like America, has personnel and bases across the region from Cyprus to the Gulf.

Both of us have a naval base in Bahrain, just across from Iran itself.

Will Iran attack British forces?: I don’t think Iran will start out by attacking our forces there, but once the missiles and drones begin flying out of Iran will our navies want to risk being hit, rather than throw up anti-aircraft fire?

Iran cannot destroy Israel.

It doesn’t yet have nuclear weapons.

But even without them, any conflict could be more deadly than the Middle East has seen since Iran and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq slaughtered hundreds of thousands in the 1980s.

That war was primarily fought on the ground.

Any Israeli-Iranian war is likely to be fought in the air.

It will be an AI war where manoeuvrable missiles and drones, even more than manned aircraft, play the lead role.

Some Iranian hardliners want to send troops to the Syrian-Israeli border to try to repeat the human wave tactics used against Saddam.

Because of the Israeli army’s reluctance to risk infantry to clear Hamas fighters out of the rubble of Gaza, they believe that if only — a big IF — their suicidal troops can get close enough to the Israelis then they could win.

In fact they would suffer the same fate as the human waves in the 1980s.

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Does Iran want “The Bomb”?: Iran has spent 40 years developing modern missiles.

Russia has shown in Ukraine how disruptive Iranian-made drones can be.

Against these Iranian missiles, Israel can deploy its Iron Dome defence system.

This has been very effective against the primitive missiles launched by Hamas but Iran has developed sophisticated warheads which might out-manoeuvre or swamp Israel’s defences.

No one in the West wants to find out.

A large-scale war between Iran and Israel will have a horrendous human price.

Even if it doesn’t go nuclear — and I don’t think Israel would use The Bomb in their arsenal unless facing defeat — missile strikes and drone attacks will cause civilian casualties, as we have seen in Gaza.

The worst case is that a powerful Iranian missile, like the Kheibar, damages Israel’s nuclear plant at Dimona.

A radiation leak would be another Chernobyl but Israel might see it as in effect a nuclear strike, and hit back with its actual nuclear warheads.

That is the worst case scenario.

Even without it, Israeli bombers will likely fly deep into Iran and knock out its nuclear research facilities.

Could conflict spark a global economic crisis?: Such a conventional exchange of fire over weeks and months will be disastrous not only for ordinary people trapped beneath the rockets but also for its dramatic impact on the world economy.

Missiles flying across neutral states like Jordan or Saudi Arabia could drag them in, especially if they are shot down and the debris causes casualties on the ground there.

The economic fallout of even a non-nuclear war will be brutal for us too.

We have had a taster over the last six months since Iran’s Yemeni proxies, the Houthis, have disrupted world trade through the Red Sea to the Suez Canal with drone strikes on container ships and tankers.

An all-out war between Israel and Iran will spike oil and natural gas prices.

Missiles flying backwards and forwards across the Persian Gulf will not only hit Iranian energy production.

The other major oil producers, such as from south Iraq to Saudi Arabia and the UAE, will be at risk.

Iran may say if Israel is going to knock out our oil terminals, then it can strike at the West’s oil-producing allies across the Gulf.

Because of our sanctions on Russian oil and gas exports after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, Middle Eastern energy supplies have become more important than ever for the European economies.

After struggling through the Covid crisis now our economies could be hit by energy shortages and price rises pushing us back into recession.

Iran knows cutting off energy exports from the Gulf will be shooting itself in the foot but the Ayatollah could well calculate that Western support for Israel will splinter if the price of petrol and anything trucked to shops shoots up.

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What will it mean for Putin and China?: While that might suit Putin, who needs high energy prices to pay for his war in Ukraine, China and India are big oil importers, so Beijing and Delhi don’t want to see a real war that could drag their economies into depression.

That said, the communist rulers of China also want to see the West weakened.

How Beijing acts to influence this crisis could be vital.

Washington has already implored President Xi Jinping to mediate.

That shows how American power in the Middle East is no longer dominant.

If the West’s enemies are less likely to listen to Washington’s calls for moderation, Israel, too, may decide that it cannot afford to hold back and let Iran actually develop The Bomb.

It has the missiles to carry one already.

Israeli society — haunted by the Nazi slaughter of Jews in the Holocaust — is united around a hawkish approach since the Hamas rampage last October.

Israelis think they cannot let Iranian hatred fester.

No one should underestimate how a war between Iran and Israel could spiral out of control.

Neither America nor its big rivals like China and Russia can really call the shots in the Middle East.

But the fighting small guys could trigger a bigger conflict dragging the big powers in.

History has seen it before.

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