And it Will Begin in the Middle East
By Luke Peterson
Jan/Feb 26
On Sept. 17, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan signed a mutual defense pact. This compelling regional accord is trumpeted as a response to Israel’s violation of Qatar’s sovereignty in early September with their bombing of diplomatic offices in Doha connected to the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (known as Hamas). This agreement, according to The Associated Press, is stated as the first major diplomatic maneuver involving an Arabian Gulf state since Israel’s attack on Qatar which took place a mere week before its signing.
Beyond a response to the threat that Israel poses to Muslim-majority states though, this diplomatic deal may be part of a larger consideration as alliances and rivalries are further entrenched ahead of a massive global political conflict. Specifically, analysts have raised the alarm about two major blocks of global power being arrayed against one another, namely the United States, Israel, and their Sunni-majority clients (Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Egypt) against the so-called Shia Crescent of Iran, Palestine (even though Palestinians are mostly Sunni Muslims), and their ostensible international backers in Russia and China. Experts suggest the world has less than 10 years before these political rivals clash, unleashing nuclear war.
Nuclear Iran
One element in these predictions concerns the Iranian nuclear program. Alarms have been sounding about Iran’s intention to produce a nuclear weapon for decades now, but these grave warnings have never been legitimate, especially coming from Israeli officials like Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Despite Tel Aviv’s deliberate obfuscation about Iran’s potential nuclear program, Washington analysts quietly wonder about the Iranian nuclear capacity in the wake of the joint June 2025 U.S. and Israeli bombing campaign against that state. According to these analysts, Iran is no longer motivated to restrain itself in its pursuit of nuclear weapons given the Trump administration’s severance of diplomatic relations and their forced isolation from the U.S. and its allies.
“The attacks will trigger a decision by the Iranians to produce nuclear weapons as the only way to ensure their security and their regime’s survival,” said Brookings analyst Robert Einhorn. “Non-nuclear states worldwide that feel threatened by nuclear-armed adversaries will pursue their own nuclear deterrents.” If so, this most recent occurrence of collusion in the practice of ultra-violence between Washington and Tel Aviv will have drastically backfired from its stated objective of using military intervention to make the Middle East safer.
Some critics of U.S. policy say it already has. Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, former Chief of Staff to Gen. Colin Powell, the Secretary of State under President George W. Bush, believes this to be the case. Speaking candidly in an early September interview on the podcast American Exception hosted by historian Aaron Good, Wilkerson condemned the Trump administration for its continued collaboration with Israel, a state he rightly called “genocidal.” Further, he argued the June bombing campaign was as ineffective as it was “stupid,” resulting only in Iran’s nuclear clock being sped up precipitously in the weeks and months since. According to Wilkerson, Iran has now clearly learned that nuclear deterrence is the only guarantee against further aggression from Israel and the U.S. As such, the warnings about Iran’s nuclear capabilities might finally have an air of truth about them as Wilkerson believes Iran will be able to deploy a nuclear device “by the end of this year.”
Will these unsettling political developments really lead to the outbreak of World War III? If they do, these are the major players and the political and cultural fault lines that will burst forward in that global cataclysm, one that humanity itself might not survive:
Iran
During President Donald Trump’s first term, he unilaterally withdrew the U.S. from its diplomatic obligations under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, a carefully crafted political arrangement that balanced European, American, and Iranian interests and served as the centerpiece of Former President Barack Obama’s diplomatic initiatives in the Middle East. Many predicted this move, likely motivated by Trump’s personal disdain for Obama, would prove disastrous in the long run as it removed all international checks on the Iranian nuclear program. Today, those predictions may be very close to coming to fruition. If and when that happens, the scenarios described here are pushed into overdrive with another joint U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran becoming highly likely. Another bombing raid of Iranian facilities could be the trigger that initiates World War III.
Russia
Russia and Iran are often described as allies, but Russian interests have held closer to home since the collapse of their proxy in Syria, the Assad regime. Since 2022, the country has been engaged in a brutal land war in Ukraine with western states led by the U.S. sustaining Ukraine’s move toward NATO and a further isolation of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Putin retaliated by punishing Ukraine thoroughly and by cultivating allies in India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and China’s President Xi Jing Ping. Those three states’ military and industrial resources in a world war scenario would prove to be formidable. According to CNBC Business News, if this new coalition sided with Iran against U.S. and Israeli interests in the Middle East, the coming, terrifying war could last many years.
China
Since the Trump administration callously canceled all programs connected to the global aid initiatives within the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the world suffered tens of thousands of preventable deaths (and will suffer millions more) as more than $30 billion in American civil aid has simply vanished on the global stage. China has stepped into the voids left by the absence of USAID.
Today, China is responsible for more than $8 billion in international aid funding in development efforts particularly targeting Southeast and Central Asia as well as Sub-Saharan Africa, according to Business Insider. This policy priority would seem to be a deliberate maneuver by Beijing to endear the Chinese state to the developing world while replacing the U.S. as a global leader in civil affairs. If it works, the array of states and societies positively influenced by China would make for formidable adversaries pitted against the U.S.-Israeli military front in the war to come.
India
Over the last decade, Modi has built a substantial support base for his ultra-right wing Bharatiya Janata Party. This support is substantially based on Hindu ethnonationalism and Islamophobic rhetoric.
For a time, fellow ethnonationalist Trump found common cause with Modi and his autocratic methods. After various slights to the Indian expat community in the U.S. from Trump though, including an ideological assault on higher education in the U.S. (within which Indians are the largest minority nationality), their relationship has soured, according to The Migration Policy Institute. Consequently, Modi is now much more comfortable in Putin and Xi’s company. Together, these three represent an ideological and political bulwark posturing against the global political order dictated by the U.S.
Pakistan
Pakistan, India’s immediate neighbor and historic rival, demonstrated itself to be a useful pawn on America’s chessboard. Representatives of their hybridized military regime have been warmly welcomed and legitimated in Trump’s gaudy Oval Office. And now, with the signing of a defense pact with Saudi Arabia, which positions the autocratic Saudis under Pakistan’s nuclear umbrella, a close regional ally of the U.S. is under the direct protection of a nearby nuclear neighbor.
According to The News International, this maneuver would seem to officially render Pakistan as a client state of the U.S. while simultaneously ending U.S.-Indian diplomatic cooperation. The U.S. will now have carte blanche to use Pakistan’s 565-mile border with Iran to expand its military presence in the region using some of the more than two dozen military bases currently flanking Iran in the region. An expanded U.S. military presence in Pakistan will serve as an implicit threat to nuclear Iran.
To further aim at Iran, Trump has loudly demanded that Afghanistan restore U.S. control of the strategically-located (for the U.S.) Bagram military base.
Israel
Senior Israeli officials have publicly endorsed the creation of “Greater Israel,” a bloated and mythologized creation of the Israeli political right which would see Israeli sovereignty extend from the Nile River in Egypt to the Euphrates in Iraq. To achieve this objective, Israel will need to complete the ethnic cleansing of Palestine that started with the Nakba of 1948. A quick review of the condition of the Palestinians of Gaza today suggests that they are well on their way to this aim.
Stalwarts of human rights like Spain and Ireland pushed back considerably on Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, but these efforts have so far proven inadequate so long as major backers of Israel like the U.S. and the United Kingdom continue to send arms and money. In the event of an outbreak of the next world war, look for Israel to be used on the frontlines in a ground invasion of Iran after a possible exchange of tactical nuclear missiles.
Palestine
The State of Palestine has been recognized by around 150 of the 193 member states of the United Nations General Assembly. Most recently, the U.K., under Prime Minister Keir Starmer, also offered its (albeit highly conditional) recognition of Palestine as a sovereign state.
However diplomatic recognition of Palestine is nowhere near enough to change the facts of the ground in Gaza or the West Bank. Millions of Gazans remain displaced and targeted by the Israeli military campaign that seeks to obliterate as many Palestinian lives as possible while comments from Israeli ministers like finance minister Bezalel Smotrich and minister for national security Itamar Ben Gvir consistently endorse population transfer of the Palestinian people, a policy also known as ethnic cleansing.
For Palestinians in 2025, to exist is to resist. Every Palestinian life reminds the Israeli occupiers and their unrepentant international backers that Palestine is not simply a problem to be rectified. If peace is ever going to come to the Middle East, Palestinians must have legitimate sovereignty, safety, and security in a fully recognized country of their own.
The United States
The U.S. is rapidly descending into fascism. Trump has shown his willingness to sow chaos and division throughout the country to solidify his power base and to prop up his neo-fascist ideology. Criticism of military action has always been taboo in the American system, but now it is becoming criminal with protesters, activists, and concerned citizens increasingly being targeted by Trump’s hyper-militarized police state.
And as the recent government-sponsored cancellation of television talk shows hosted by administration critics demonstrates, the media will not help to create an informed populace with the capacity for critical thought that can resist American fascism. As such, a declaration of war by the U.S. against Iran or a similarly demonized international enemy will almost certainly be smoothed over by state propaganda to support the troops, and more targeted attacks against immigrants, protesters, leftists, and any group or individual bold enough to resist Trump. In short, if Trump decides to start World War III in Iran, we will have little hope of stopping him.
Those of us seeking to avert this global catastrophe pray for wise policymakers to step to the fore in each of these places so that cooler heads and calmer conditions can shepherd humanity beyond the 21st century. We do this while preparing for the worst-case scenario to envelop the world and everyone in it sooner rather than later.
Dr. Luke Peterson is a university professor lecturing on Middle East history and politics as well as the Arabic language. His latest book, The U.S. Military in the Print News Media, is available from most online book sellers.
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