American historian Walter Russell Mead returned worried from his recent trip to the Middle East. In a chronicle of wall street journal, he says he fears that a new conflict will break out in the region. Strengthened by its new strategic partnership with Russia, Iran is continuing “its inexorable march towards nuclear armament” and the production of missiles capable of winning. Tehran is close to the threshold of the atomic bomb with a degree of uranium enrichment of 84%. No one in Western chancelleries wants a nuclear Iran – Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu even less than anyone. The scenario feared by our author is that of the establishment by the Iranians, around their nuclear sites, of sophisticated anti-aircraft defense systems of Russian origin. It would therefore be more difficult for the Israeli air force to intervene against Iranian nuclear installations, as it probably did at the end of last January. The Israelis would be tempted to carry out a preventive attack despite everything, likely to trigger a regional conflict involving Russia and sooner or later the United States, which would thus have a new conflict on their hands without having sought it.
