No. Although there are several regional tensions which are not improving or deterorating, including Israel and Lebanon. Encouraging a Syrian withdrawl was the right thing to do politically, but the dynamic of the middle east is already fragile, and not having a Syrian presence in Lebanon may weaken any political resolution to this. Iran being behind this could be problematic too. Then theres North Korea, and Iran again. Then you have Somalia, Algeria, Chad Sudan war, Darfur, Tamil, DRC, Ivory Coast, Uganda, Somalia...
Its a crazy time in the world with all of these seperate conflicts and issues. Could they spark a worldwide conflict?
And Iraq, Columbia and Zimbabwe. Not really. Most of the things I listed were sectarian or ethnic conflicts. None of the seperate elements have any sort of common goals, with the exception of the fact that North Korea would sell weapons to all sides. Although the US, China, the Russians, the British and the French sell more weapons, so... I suppose the good news is the main powers are security council members and major trading partners and wont go to war. The most dangerous of these seem to be: Iraq: The US should be looking for an out but unfortunatly, the Sunni and Shia arabs are dangerously close to civil war, and the Kurdish Shia want to have their own country. We have a difficult situation if a withdrawl would start a civil war. This is being augmented by foreign fighters who have a very succesful propaganda campaign and commit attacks to spur on civil fighting. Lebanon: This isn't a huge prolem by itself, but it does risk dragging Iran in since they are likely involved in most of Hezbollahs attack, which might lead to a larger war in the Middle East between Israel and Iran and several arabic states. North Korea: North Korea isn't directly a threat to the US, but their weapons program is, firstly because they sell weapons to anti-American militias, and much more importantly, because this is a very large threat to Japan. Theres talk in Japan of remilitarizing, changing it's constitution to do so. I'm not very aware of how much support this has in Japan, but to my understanding it is. Japan militarizing would mean an arms race in Asia between the Japanese and China. Moreover, it's possible that Kim Jong Ill values his hatred for Japan over self intrest, and is somewhat likely to attack Japan as soon as their able. Democratic Republic of Congo: Their having elections comming up, but with the severe ethnic strife, it faces falling back into chaotic war if the elections don't work. The Congo civil wars which started in 1996 had more causalties then any conflict since World War 2. North Korea is the only situation which might have the possibility of leading to another world war. But it's not likely. There certainly is a lot of strife right now.
I personally think WW III started with the invasion of Iraq, but it will be up to history to determine this. There is no doubt we are seeing an escalation right now, especially when we look at what's going on with Israel, who have been hungry for a massive war against the Arab world for decades, and are now using whatever justification they can find to wage this war. Things are definitely coming to a head, and it's hard not to see this if you're awake. The people at the wheel of this country and Israel are psychopaths, hellbent on doing whatever it takes to fulfill their agenda that has been in the works for years. Perpetual war is their speciality as it is their doctrine.
