UPDATED The Middle East prepares..... The world waits.....

Update at bottom.



Is this the inevitable war? The "JOLT" I spoke about here?

This is where the roaring has been emanating from for years. The "dry tinder" is ready and waiting for the "spark".

What decision will our talking head in his throne make, without our input?

Will he side with Iran ideologically or worse, militarily? Will this be an explosion in the ME, or become our next world war?

The Middle East prepares..... The world waits.....

DE BORCHGRAVE: Jitters over expected Israeli air attack
Gulf states get set for a raid on Iran's nuclear sites
By Arnaud de Borchgrave | Friday, April 17, 2009

COMMENTARY:

Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members - Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Oman - are getting ready for what many now assume will be retaliation from Iran after an Israeli bombing of Iran's nuclear facilities later this year.

Up and down the Gulf, Patriot missile batteries have been quietly deployed around key oil installations. The Patriot system is designed to detect, target and hit incoming missiles that may be no more than 10 to 20 feet long and flying at three to five times the speed of sound. Iran has hundreds of missiles and rockets.

There is also a steady traffic in and out of Washington of high-ranking GCC military and defense officials, including Army, Air Force and Navy chiefs. Gulf rulers are fearful Israel's new government - headed by the tough, uncompromising Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu - will walk away from any possibility of a Palestinian solution. Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said as much when he it made clear that "we are no longer bound by the previous government's undertakings for the negotiation of a Palestinian state."

The Annapolis accord of 2007 for a two-state solution? Didn't happen on our watch, said Israel's new governing team. Mr. Lieberman even wants to strip any rights from Arab Israelis who are disloyal to the Jewish state.

Undeterred, George Mitchell, the new supernegotiator for a Middle East settlement, went back to the region for the third time since Barack Obama became president. He sees a glimmer of hope for a peace deal with Syria that would detach the ruling dictatorship from its close ties with Iran. However, a Netanyahu government in Israel is not about to give up control of the Golan Heights it has occupied since the 1967 Six-Day War.

While Iran may unclench its fist in words, as President Obama unclenched America's, no one in Israel, and very few in other countries, believe Iran's theocrats will relinquish the nuclear ambitions they have been working on secretly for the last quarter century. Mr. Netanyahu echoed nearly unanimous Israeli feelings when he said an Iranian bomb, coupled with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's threats of destruction against the Jewish state, is an "existential crisis" that Israel cannot and will not ignore.

Israel's moderate President Shimon Peres added a stern warning. If forthcoming talks with Iran don't yield results, he admonished, "We'll strike." But, he added, this cannot be done without the United States.

Would they really depend on Obama? That would be suicide. But then again, going forward without Obama's approval, would also be suicide. Wait a minute, not doing anything, will be suicide. Shit!

Israel's military intelligence chief Amos Yadlin told the Knesset's foreign-affairs and defense committee that the emergence of a nuclear arsenal in Iran is now "mainly dependent on a political decision."

The assumption among most GCC rulers is that Israel will launch bombers against some of Iran's 27 nuclear sites as soon as it becomes clear the mullahs won't agree to surrender their nuclear option at upcoming six-power talks. The United States and Iran will be at the same negotiating table - along with China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany - for the first time since the Iranian revolution ousted the late shah 30 years ago.

Iran's next presidential elections are scheduled for June 14, when Mr. Ahmadinejad may lose the presidency to a candidate judged by Western powers to be comparatively moderate. However, the latest word from Iran-watchers is that the supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, favors the re-election of his extremist protege. This would be another green light for the Netanyahu coalition government to order an attack.

In response to the comments, I have added a simplified timeline of the lead up to WWII. Substitute these timelines, with those of the building ME crisis.

Despite Obama, a major war is brewing.

1921 Because of the political weaknesses of the League of Nations, the major powers held diplomatic conferences outside the organization; the first of these conferences was held in 1921 and 1922 in Washington DC.

1928 Paris: American seceratary of state, Frank B. Kellogg and french foreign minister, Aristide Briand, drafted a treaty condemning war at an international conference.

Late 1920's Military gained increasing power in Japan.

1930 Japan's liberal prime minister, Yuk Hamaguchi was fatally shot. Political disorder followed, and within two years militarists controlled the Japanese government.

1931 Explosion near the city of Mukden, Manchuria damaged Japanese-controlled railroad.

1932 Japan declares Manchuria an independent nation under the name of "Manchukuo."

1933 Hitler had taken Germany out of the League of Nations and announced his intention to re-arm the country.

1934 Italian border patrol in Italian Somaliland clashed with an Ethiopian border patrol.

1935 Mussolni waged an all out campaign to conquer and colonize the independent nation of Ethiopia.

1936 September: Hitler and Mussolini formed a military alliance called the "Rome-Berlin Axis" and began referring to themselves as the axis powers."
February: A "Populat Front" government that included Socialists and Communists won a major election

Spring: Italians entered the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa

Summer: League of Nations called off its sanctions on Italy.

1937 In the Neutrality Act of 1937, the United States expressed its determination to remain neutral in future wars.

Japanese and Chinese troops clashed near Beijing. Japanese armies captured the city and at once began to move southward. China tried to resist, but it didn't really work.

1938 Threats from both Hitler and Mussolini forced the Austrian government to include Nazi members it's cabinet.

By spring, nationalist forces in Spain had grown strong enough for a large-scale offensive. They defeated the weak loyalist troops in March 1939.

April: Mussolini invades Albania

September 22: Hitler demands that sudetenland be turned over to Germany, and if not he threatened to take it by force.

1939 September 1: Hitler declared the annexation of Danzig to the Reich, while at the same time without warning, his air force made a massive attack on Poland. Within 48 hours of the unannounced attack on Poland had become the beginning of WWII
Japan lost nearly 500,000 troops in China and spent 10 billion. Chinese losses were uncountable.

Japanese occupied about one fourth of China, including all of its seaports, the Chang Jiang valley as far as Hankou and many other interior cities.
A revised Neutrality act allowed American Firms to sell munitions to belligerent nations, but only on a cash-and-carry basis

1940 Fall: Germany held almost all of western Europe

September: President Franklin D. Roosevelt, by executive agreement transferred 50 old American naval destroyers to Great Britain. In exchange, Great Britain gave the United States long-term leases on British naval and airbases in Newfoundland, The British West Indies, and British Guiana.

November: At a Soviet-German conference in Berlin, Soviets demanded that Bulgaria, Istanbul, the Dardanelles, and the Bosporus be included in their sphere of influence.

1941 June 22: The war entered a new phase. Without a declaration of war, German armies invaded the Soviet Union.

December: Expanding conflicts and events in the Pacific area drew the US into war.

December 7: While Tojo's representatives were still in Washington, the Japanese launched a surprise attack on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor.

December 8: Congress declares war on Japan as did the British Parliament. Three days later, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States, and congress replied with its own declaration of war.