WITH the upsurge of conflicts raging in the Middle East and Ukraine, it is not an exaggeration to say that the world is on the precipice of a nuclear catastrophe.
Israel and Iran, two bitter enemies, are already on the verge of an all-out war.
In the latest retaliation on Oct 1, Iran launched a barrage of 180 missiles on Israel.
In Ukraine, theatre of the proxy war between the United States and its North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) allies against Russia, the threat of nuclear weapons is spiralling alarmingly.
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced consequential changes to Russia’s nuclear doctrine in a security council meeting on Sept 25.
It was the eve of a meeting between US President Joe Biden and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy, during which a decision was supposed to be made to allow Kyiv to use Western missiles to strike deep into Russian territory.
In the latest “red line warning”, Putin said Russia would respond with nuclear weapons if they allowed Ukraine to strike Russia with long-range missiles.
In a move seen to significantly lower the margin for possible use of Russia’s nuclear arsenal, he warned that any offensive supported by a nuclear power would be considered a joint attack against his country.
Russia reportedly has the world’s largest stockpile of nuclear weapons, with an estimated 6,257 warheads.
As for Iran, a major upgrade is under way at its most heavily protected Fordow nuclear enrichment plan.
The process could enable it to assemble a nuclear arsenal.
Iran is also planning to expand production at its main enrichment plant near the city of Natanz.
Both moves have sparked fears that the country is moving rapidly towards becoming a latent nuclear power, capable of making nuclear bombs rapidly if its leaders decide to do so.
Iran’s massive missile attack was launched less than a week after an Israeli strike killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah In Beirut.
While Iran claimed that military targets were hit, Israel said most were intercepted and that the damage was “minimal”.
However, satellite images published by AP two days later showed at least four strikes on Israel’s Nevatim air base.
The Israeli army later confirmed that several military bases were damaged, adding that no armaments, troops or planes were hit.
Even so, it is a shocker, as Israel is reputed to have the world’s top air defence system to deal with short-range rockets and long- and medium-range missiles.
Israel did not disclose the interception rate against Iran’s missiles.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised to hit back hard against Iran, but Biden advised Israel against striking Iran’s nuclear facilities, saying that it would be “disproportionate”.
On Saturday, Biden also cautioned against attacking Iran’s oil production facilities, an apparent U-turn of what he agreed on two days earlier, which led to a spike in crude oil prices.
Biden has even offered Israel a “compensation package” in the form of “extensive diplomatic backing and additional military aid” if certain targets inside Iranian territory are spared.
Iran has threatened to retaliate by striking Israel’s energy sources, installations, refineries and gas fields.
In spite of this and Biden’s responses, Netanyahu has repeated his pledge to launch a retaliatory attack.
Unlike Iran’s first strike at Israel in April, in which hundreds of drones were used, the latest involved advanced missiles, including Fateh-1 with a 450kg warhead, which is claimed by Iran to be hypersonic and capable of reaching targets over 1,500km away.
A missile is classified as hypersonic if it can move at speeds of Mach 5 or five times the speed of sound.
Iran is believed to have a stockpile of over 3,000 ballistic missiles.
As of Monday, Israel had completed 12 months of ceaseless genocidal destruction of Gaza and the other Palestinian enclave of the West Bank.
The death toll of Palestinians killed since Oct 7 last year has now risen to 41,900 – mostly women and children – while close to 100,000 have been maimed by the constant onslaught.
The ongoing slaughter is supposed to be justified by the incursion of Hamas fighters, during which about 1,200 Israelis were killed and hostages taken.
But in July, Israeli newspaper Haaretz revealed that many of the dead were also killed by the Israeli armed forces.
It reported that commanders gave the order to fire on soldiers captured by Hamas at three separate locations, explicitly referencing the “Hannibal Protocol”.
The doctrine, written in 1986 in response to the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers in Lebanon, gave Israeli forces the go-ahead to fire on enemies holding their comrades hostage, even at the risk of killing them.
The name refers to Hannibal, the Carthaginian general who chose to drink poison and die rather than be captured by the Romans.
Over the past three weeks, Israel has extended its massacre of Palestinians in Gaza and West Bank to across the border in Lebanon.
The Israeli regime’s indiscriminate bombing of Beirut and other heavily populated areas has killed more than 2,000 people, mostly civilians, and displaced over a million from their homes.
As for Putin’s latest nuclear warning, not all in the West seem to be taking it seriously because many “red lines” had already been crossed in the past, including Ukraine’s now disastrous incursion into Kursk.
But it would be a gamble, and a humongous one if Putin is not bluffing, especially after Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov issued a chilling new warning during the United Nations General Assembly on Sept 28.
He told Washington and its allies to get ready for a “suicide venture”.
It is highly plausible that Russia would use nuclear weapons, resulting in the conflict exploding swiftly into World War III, if its very existence is threatened.
Media consultant M. Veera Pandiyan likes this view of Abraham Lincoln: There’s no honourable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war. Except its ending. The views here are the writer’s own.
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