Loading ...This strategic “crescent,” or land-bridge, is something that the radical Iranian leadership has coveted for decades and has now achieved, via both boots on the ground and influence-by-other-means: influence that reaches deep into such remote spots as Yemen, Venezuela and North Korea.
Here’s what behind war drums: The U.S. is muscularly tightening the screws with effective oil sanctions against Tehran, and, if Iran’s oil lifeline is all but cut off amid an already atrophying economy, the regime could strike back: with a first strike at scattered U.S. forces on the ground in Iran-dominated Iraq.
Were it to transpire, make no mistake, this would be a very big war, one that could rapidly escalate into a conflict that would unfold in a much more violent and costly way than the two Gulf Wars involving the United States and Iraq from previous decades.
Iran, with a population of some 80 million, has a very large military (including an estimated 550,000 active personnel), a growing armory of increasingly accurate land-based ballistic and cruise missiles, plus a scrappy navy that includes a contingent of hard-to-detect “midget” submarines.
Today the nation’s geopolitical sphere, indeed, its military reach, extends from Tehran, through Baghdad, into Damascus and terminates in Beirut: a highly strategic corridor all the way to the Mediterranean.
https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium-how-the-war-between-america-and-iran-will-start-1.7215695