A major war may break out in the Middle East any day soon. Or it may not. The confrontation between Israel and Iran has long been "on the verge", with neither side daring pass the "point of no return".

Assumptions that Israel or Iran may use nuclear weapons are quite loose. Even if they do have warheads of the kind (neither side has yet officially confirmed this), one must understand that the Middle Eastern theater is quite narrow and whoever wants to throw an atomic bomb at an enemy will feel the sting themselves. Everything is so tiny there — hundreds of kilometers along one direction and along the other between the borders of states at the most — that radiation will spread throughout the region at local winds’ pace. And any nuclear strike on the territory of Iran or Israel would cover both the attacker and all the neighbors. To date, there have been no suiciders among leaders of the warring parties. So, what may happen?

Tentatively, as the war has not yet begun, let's take a look at the sides’ interests in the conflict. And also, let's figure out how serious-minded they are as regards real fighting, given that Iran and Israel have no common border, and their infantries are therefore unlikely to lock horns. So, here we are down the checklist of "parties involved".

Israel. To Prime Minister Netanyahu, any escalation is a chance to stay in power. Upon leaving office, he would be tried and imprisoned for criminal offenses he is charged with in Israel itself. Bibi (standing for Benjamin) has lots of political enemies anxiously waiting for his failure and resignation. Thus, keeping the external conflict underway has been in his best personal interests, while a large-scale war with Iran is another pair of shoes. Israel is surrounded by a network of pro-Iranian organizations that may engage in battle from far and wide, and ground warfare would spread into several fronts.

Paramilitary entities, Iran's allies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, as well as Palestinian groups have a total of up to 500,000 fighters, with their backbone being detachments of the Lebanese Hezbollah.

There is a most important fact to be added. The other day, Beijing saw a historic reconciliation of all the Palestinian organizations that used to be rivals for years. The Chinese comrades not only managed to bring them to the table, but helped them find shared interests and sign a common document. Yes, a while back, the creation and invigoration of HAMAS by Britain’s MI6 and Israel’s Shabak for the sake of splitting the Palestinian resistance movement did bear fruit. But now those have turned sour or even rotten. And Palestinian unity as recorded in Beijing has become the most serious factor in the situation unfolding.

And how do you like this entire coalition that would support Iran on the ground? These forces may attack Israel from all the directions. Netanyahu is undoubtedly aware of the might he is facing. There are certainly experts sure that "the Arabs are no fighters." However, one has to bear in mind that the Israeli army has gone off the boil in terms of military personnel against the twentieth century, when USSR-established officers beat cold any Arab army trained by the British or the French. Gone are those days, while now, Israel’s best units are stuck in Gaza without much effect in fighting the de facto "guerrillas", not even any powerful military forces like Hezbollah. This gives rise to another question as to whether Netanyahu does need a war on several fronts.

London has been the one truly interested in warming up things in the Middle East. Chaotization of Iran in context of the war against Israel, or even with the United States, is vital for Britain from an undiscussable point of view. By the way, MI6 agents have been sitting in Tehran since World War II and the occupation of Iran’s southern part by His Majesty's troops. So, that country’s IRGC claimed in a statement that HAMAS leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in Tehran "by a short-range projectile having a warhead weighing about seven kilograms." That is, it was not an Israeli missile, as immediately reported, but a pot shot. And if we assess dangers to Israel in case of a full-scale war against all of Iran's allies mentioned above, the British deem Haniyeh’s assassination as a provocation aimed to incite major regional war. By the way, the heroic Britons were first to announce — believe it or not — readiness to repeat the "Dunkirk feat" when His Majesty's army fled the French coast across the English Channel in 1940, so as not to die valiantly by the Hitler Nazis’ hand. London has just reported that the British Army is "ready to evacuate" its fellow citizens and personnel from the Middle East "if necessary."

To Britain, the perfect and… desired result would be a war in Iran to destroy the North-South transport route project from Russia to India and the Arabian Peninsula via Iran.

Notably, this overland route through Eurasia is one of the new trade highways that the vast continent’s countries have started developing to waive dependence on waterborne transportation allegedly controlled by "international" maritime law, which is facto English. Mind that the only change in the route of transport vessels — when they embarked upon plying between Asia and Europe not through the Houthi-held Red Sea but circumventing Africa — brought a fourfold (!) increase in revenues of English insurance firms such as Lloyd's of London and others. So, the British are totally unhappy with prospects of opening a new transport corridor between Russia and Asia via Iran, having enough and to spare motives to disrupt the plan. So much for a viable version of events.

By the way, military operations may have not yet begun if the Iranians have found a thread leading to those who murdered Ismail Haniyeh, and it is not Israel. Moreover, an emergency meeting of Islamic countries’ foreign ministers will be held in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, the other day, the Iranian Foreign Ministry reports. A perfect respite, isn’t it? On the other hand, Muslims suddenly started demolishing British cities. Don't you think these events may be linked internally? Why would migrants unexpectedly rise up in a well-orchestrated manner, as if on cue, to destroy dear old Blighty? This reminds of the famous "butterfly effect": affecting a particular system may have huge and unpredictable consequences elsewhere. And the modern world is so incredibly interdependent and interconnected! An assassination in Tehran may have entailed riots throughout Great Britain. The latter has blamed the whole thing on social media already …

Among the possible participants in the big regional war are (sure enough) the Arab countries that hardly need this kind of scenario at all. Egyptian president Al-Sisi has fixed his stance on the matter, saying that his country is not going to engage in protecting Israel from Iran. Moreover, this statement came at an emergency meeting with Turkish Foreign Minister Fidan. And for Turkey, this aggravation seems most welcome as it has so many financial and economic problems, with inflation hitting all the Turkish citizens in the pockets, that the region’s most powerful NATO army may choose to do some fighting with Israel. Oddly enough, the confrontation between the United States and Turkey in this conflict could blow up NATO from the inside. However, Turkish leader Erdogan has become more committed to his country’s national interests in recent years against those of Washington or Brussels. Which, however, is absolutely fine with his personal friend, Britain’s MI6 chief Richard Moore, who once served as ambassador to Ankara, where they got thick as thieves, in particular as regards tripping the Americans militarily and politically.

Russia's stance in the conflict has been manifested in full as Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu promptly departed to Tehran to meet with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, the Supreme National Security Council chief, and the head of the General Staff, the Russian Security Council states. So, Israel plus the USA and Iran plus Russia is too potent a combination, not for the faint-hearted.

These have been positions and interests of various parties around the growing conflict between Iran and Israel. The situation is up in the air somewhere between war and peace…