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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
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Simon Tisdall

There is a mega-bomb waiting to explode in the Middle East. Biden must not light the fuse by attacking Iran

Joe Biden at the First in the Nation Dinner, South Carolina State Fairgrounds, Columbia, 27 January 2024.
‘Biden miscalculated in the immediate 7 October aftermath in offering Israel unconditional US support. Now he may miscalculate again.’ Photograph: Kyle Mazza/NurPhoto/REX/Shutterstock

The unprecedented Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel on 7 October set a fuse burning under the entire Middle East. Now the fearsome, figurative mega-bomb to which that fuse is ultimately attached – direct conflict between the US and Iran – may be about to explode, with devastating consequences.

With every day that Israel’s illegal bombardment of Gaza continues, with every new estimate of the tens of thousands of Palestinian dead, a huge detonation edges closer. From the Red Sea to Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, an escalating, four-month spiral of violence, principally involving pro-Palestinian, Iran-backed militias, has been inexorably building.

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