TRUMP’S historic strikes against Iran could push the world to the brink of global conflict, experts have warned.
Wounded Iran has vowed to fight on, and at this very moment will be calling upon its allies to amass against the West.
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While Israel has stamped out much of Iran’s power in the Middle East, the regime retains formidable allies with fiercely anti-west ambitions.
Experts believe Trump’s strikes could force the Axis of Evil closer together, and set in motion a chain of events that embroils more countries into conflict.
Philip Ingram, a global defence expert, told The Sun: “Iranian ballistic missiles will not reach the United States and therefore to respond to the United States‘s attack, Iran is going to have to do something different.
“It’ll bring its axis of evil. That means Iran, Russia, North Korea and China.
“We are a couple of feet further up the escalation ladder towards a global conflict.”
North Korea showed its willingness to get involved with other wars when Kim sent 12,000 troops over to fight on Russia‘s front line with Ukraine.
With Iran increasingly desperate, the nuclear hermit kingdom could step in and provide military aid such as “missile technology“, Ingram said.
Russia has been one of Iran’s most vocal allies, warning all along that regime change would be “unacceptable” – and Iran’s foreign minister has already made plans to visit Putin after the US hit.
The Kremlin said assassinating Iran’s supreme leader would “open Pandora’s box”.
Ingram expects that “Iran and Russia will join forces to try and cause as much disruption in different countries as possible.”
Russia is well-versed in the dark arts, and has already propagated a campaign of sabotage against the West, so would have plenty to teach Iran.
Closer Iran-Russia ties are not the only way the US strikes could implicate Putin.
Ingram said: “The escalating conflict helps Russia by moving Russia-Ukraine further down the agenda so that people aren’t focusing on it.
“It also ties up international geopolitical organisations and politicians in a complex Middle East situation – so again they don’t have the capacity to focus on what Russia’s doing in Ukraine.”
Chip Chapman, a retired Major General in the British Army, told The Sun that the most immediate threat to western allies would be if Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz – which could even see the UK dragged into the conflict.
He said: “20 percent of the world’s oil runs through the strait. Closing it could have huge implications for the oil price.
“And that’s where the Brits may get involved. If the Iranians were to try and close the Strait of Hormuz, there would be a definite ask from the Americans to the Brits.”
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Russia would likely back Iran’s decision to close the strait, because an increase in oil prices would help fund its activities, Ingram explained.
Closer to home, Iran for many years enjoyed considerable power in the Middle East through its proxies across the region.
Two of the key players were Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon – but over the past 20 months Israel has seriously crippled them.
However, Ingram says the Houthis in Yemen still pose a threat to the world other.
Since Israel and Iran began trading missiles, there have been large-scale anti-west protests in Sa’na, Yemen’s capital, where there is deep support for the Houthis.
Ingram said: “I think we will see a massive uptake in Houthi activity in disrupting international shipping in the Red Sea.”
And that’s another crisis that would threaten to drag the UK into direct action.
Ingram explained: “The Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force would have to help protect shipping there.
“I can see more bombing raids going in against the Houthis that we will be part of.”
Experts have also warned that Trump’s strikes could prove a “slippery slope” and commit the US to pursuing more extreme military goals in Iran – such as overthrowing the regime.
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Laura Blumenfeld, a Middle East analyst at the Johns Hopkins School, said: “Beware mission creep, aiming for regime change and democratization campaigns.
“You’ll find the bones of many failed US moral missions buried in Middle East sands.”
US-driven regime change would likely drive a wedge further between the West and the Islamic world – as happened with Iraq – the experts suggest.
Ingram said: “If there Ayatollah was killed it could change the whole way the government is set up in Iran, like we had with the fall of the Shah (a former Iranian leader).
“Then you whatever comes in next could be worse than what’s in now and more polarised.”
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The US strikes could also act as a spark to other flash points around the world – such as the China-Taiwan tensions.
Ingram said: “China will likely sit back and wait to see what’s happening, to begin with.
“Xi Jinping might think the international community is so tied up in the Middle East, that he has a window of opportunity, and he might try and take Taiwan.
“The world is not just a more febrile place, but the potentials for a series of events to happen to take us into a global conflict have just become even more complex to try and analyse.
“We haven’t moved away from conflict. We have moved away from a despot regime getting towns on nuclear weapons, but it’s not made the world immediately safer.
“What happens over the coming days and weeks will let us understand as to whether we have moved back from the brink of a global conflict or move further forward.”