Why the Middle East risks exploding

“This is not what we want, not what we’re looking for,” he said. “We don’t want to see our forces or our personnel come under fire. But if that happens, we’re ready for it.”

The US has ordered all non-emergency personnel to leave Iraq, citing increased security threats. This coincides with America upping its military presence in the region to try to deter Iran and others from extending the Israeli Gaza war.

“We don’t want to see a second or third front develop,” Blinken said.

Yet it seems impossible to block the steadily increasing probability of this occurring.

Desperate negotiations to secure the release of hostages being held in Gaza may temporarily delay Israel’s planned invasion of the Palestinian territory – along with its unpredictable consequences.

The constant Hezbollah attacks on Israel from Lebanon and clashes in the West Bank indicate a great unravelling in the Middle East is certainly possible if not imminent. Israel has just taken the unusual step of launching an airstrike against a mosque in the West Bank. Other Israeli airstrikes against Syria’s airports in Damascus and Aleppo were aimed at deterring Iran from moving weapons into Syria as part of another assault on the ability of Israeli Defence Forces to defend borders. There are plenty of analysts in the West arguing Iran won’t proceed to directly confront Israel, preferring to encourage its proxies to keep stoking tensions.

So the Islamic Resistance in Iraq – a coalition of Iranian backed forces – is conducting drone attacks on US forces at an airbase in Iraq while pro-Iranian Houthi rebels in Yemen launched cruise missiles and drones that were shot down by a US warship.

Such assaults will continue without any relief or remorse, guaranteeing explosive risks in different areas combining with the impact of Israel’s intensified bombing campaign in Gaza followed by the expected ground assault.

US President Joe Biden’s efforts to deflect the danger of escalation with regular warnings to other players to stay out of the conflict seem more like expressions of hope than reality.

The desperate negotiations to try to secure the release of the hostages being held in Gaza may temporarily delay but not stop Israel’s planned invasion of the Palestinian territory – along with its unpredictable consequences.

Biden has so far been successful in maintaining consensus in the West (if not in the Republican Party) about the need to help Ukraine defend itself against Russia’s aggression.

But that protracted war has already been overshadowed by the immediacy of the unfolding disaster in the Middle East and the greater internal divisions within Western democracies about the extent of Israel’s response to the Hamas horror.

Biden’s conversations with leaders of Britain, France, Italy, Germany and Canada about how to try to prevent disaster spreading throughout the region will automatically include meetings with Anthony Albanese this week given the coincidental timing of the prime minister’s visit to Washington.

In brief remarks after he landed, Albanese said the world’s focus on the unrest in the Middle East meant he and the President would “no doubt” talk about these issues.

“It will be a very important visit that comes at a turbulent time for the world. But the good thing about Australia and the United States is the strength of that relationship provides that stability, that security and that comfort with each other that comes from our common values,” he said.

Not that those common values or stability are in much evidence in America’s dysfunctional domestic politics with congressional Republicans still unable to agree on a speaker after three weeks of debilitating confusion.

This not only prevents Albanese from making a planned prime ministerial address to the US congress. It also greatly complicates progress on congressional approval for changes required to arms export regulations preventing America’s ability to share defence technology with Australia under the AUKUS partnership.

Albanese says this is necessary to turn “vision into practical reality”. (When exactly?)

He will also emphasise the importance of the Australian US alliance in the Indo-Pacific with China as the obvious fulcrum of mutual concern. Improvement in Australia’s relations with China is not reflected in the US, where strong hostility towards Beijing remains a rare area of bipartisan agreement. This makes the tone of Albanese’s trip to Beijing next month even more sensitive, although the US will be keen for Australian impressions of Xi Jinping’s intentions.

But none of the confidence expressed this week in the enduring strength of the alliance will influence the urgency of the brutal choices that must be made in the Middle East. Risk On.