As Israel Eyes Iran & Anti-US Protests Flare, Middle East Presents Frightening Prospects

When President Barack Obama decided to support the Arab Spring last year, it was as if a bomb disposal expert had decided to conduct a controlled explosion on a clearly unstable device without knowing quite what was inside.

He must have known there would be flames, and casualties, but even as it burns, the final damage remains impossible to guess at.

The riots spreading across the Muslim world in protest at a crude film mocking the Prophet Mohammed are in a way the least of his problems: the “known unknowns”, as the former US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld might say.

Far more frightening are the prospects of former allies, like Egypt, turning hostile; of anti-American Islamist groups seizing power or causing mayhem in war-torn countries like Syria.

Or of “The Big One” – an attack on Iran by Israel prompting a violent response by Tehran and its proxies, with ordinary Muslims across the region incensed at another military intervention in the Middle East.

continue at The Telegraph:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/9545567/As-Israel-eyes-Iran-and-anti-US-protests-flare-Middle-East-presents-frightening-prospects.html

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