ST.PETERSBURG, Fla., March 5 (UPI) -- Spring is just around the corner, which means this is traditionally a good time for military offensives. This year the greater Middle East can expect at least two, if not more. This is what a group of experts in the intelligence field, some active, some retired, are gathered in southern Florida to asses, along with other pending threats emanating from the Islamist world.
As the ice and snows begins to thaw from the high ridges of Afghanistan's mountains, clearing gorges and mountain passes, experts and NATO commanders are predicting a new offensive by the Taliban against the international force and government forces loyal to President Hamid Karzai, whom NATO and the U.S. supports.
This expected offensive will come more than four years after the U.S. ousted the Taliban regime and most of al-Qaida's forces whom the Taliban supreme commander Mullah Omar gave a free hand to establish bases and training camps around the country.
Now, after years of living on the run from U.S. and other international special forces, Taliban supporters are thought by Western intelligence agencies to be ready to try and re-assert themselves as a force to be reckoned with in Afghanistan. This is very bad news for the NATO-led coalition.
Nobody knows yet how much firepower or how many men the Taliban will be able to throw into the spring offensive, but a fight is expected and U.S. and NATO forces are making whatever preparations they can. The obvious answer is for NATO to deploy greater numbers of combat troops, but contributing countries are being particularly cautious as to how many troops they deploy and, even more particular as to where they deploy them. Many members preferring to keep their forces away from potentially troubled spots. Yet part of Afghanistan's problem is that the entire country is rapidly becoming "troubled-spots."
During the past year and a half, anti-government forces and anti-U.S. sympathizers in Kabul and other Afghan cities have begun adopting suicide bombings and tactics similar to those used by Iraqi insurgents fighting the U.S. occupation in Iraq.
Iraq: In spite of the surge of some 21,000 and plus American GIs committed to mainly the Baghdad area, the operation is yet to bear fruit -- if it ever will. In the meantime, heavy fighting continues as U.S. forces, backed by Iraqi army and police units continue their assault aimed at securing at least the capital Baghdad from insurgents and jihadi fighters.
Iran: Possibly the hottest of all Middle East crises is Iran's continued quest for nuclear arms, with the Islamic republic resisting pressure from friend and foes alike to give up on its nuclear ambitions, lest a nuclear arms race breaks out in the Middle East,
Israel, with its nuclear facility based at Dimona near Beersheba, has never admitted to actually possessing nuclear bombs, but it's the country's worst guarded secret. Everybody knows where the plant it and what goes on behind the strict security under those futuristic looking domes. But with Iran about to join the nuclear club, so too, now other nations in the region will want to follow suit. With tension mounting between Sunnis and Shiites around the region to dangerous new levels -- one State Department official at a recent off the record dinner predicted a full-scale intra Muslim civil war between Shiite and Sunnis sometime within the next 10 years -- it would therefore make sense, from the Sunni perspective, to try and develop their own nuclear program as quickly as possible
Sunni countries, led primarily by Saudi Arabia will not stand idle while Iran, a country with a 96 percent majority Shiite population, develops a nuclear arsenal, or tries to dictate Islamic policy in the Gulf.
This, explains Michael Nights of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, in his new book "Troubled Waters," is why the U.S. remains so concerned by the issue of security of the Gulf.
"Since the 1980s, U.S. Central Command -- or CENTCOM -- has undertaken 14 major contingency operations in the Gulf, including two major wars, numerous smaller military strikes and operations, and parallel maritime and aerial containment operations lasting 12 years," writes Knights.
So most probably, changes are that sometime within the next decade of so, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt could follow Iran's lead. Where will it all lead to from there is anyone's guess. Could Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad follow up on his earlier threats to "wipe Israel off the map" become a reality?
Unlikely, as Ahmadinejad does not call all the shots, but it could. Then again, within seconds of such an attack -- and while Israel is still operational, it would launch an unprecedented reprisal nuclear strike on Iran, making the country glow in the dark.
Indeed there is March madness in the air this spring, but of a very lethal sort.
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