A Third World War is not impossible, but fortunately is rather unlikely. Let us explore why, and what can be done to prevent it.

Johan Galtung

The worst-case scenario is a world war between the West — NATO, U.S., EU with Japan-Taiwan-South Korea — and the East—the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) with Russia, China, Central Asia as members and India, Pakistan, Iran as observers. With four nuclear powers on each side, and West versus Islam as a major issue. In the centre is the explosive mix of a divided territory (Israel-Palestine) and Jerusalem, a capital divided by a wall.

We have been there before: the Cold War, with West versus Communism as a major issue. In the centre was the explosive mix of a divided Germany, and Berlin, a capital divided by a wall; and a divided Korea, by a demilitarised zone. And yet no direct, hot war, except by proxies; Korea, Vietnam. Why?

No doubt nuclear deterrence was one factor. They went to the brink but turned around–like in the 1962 Cuba-Turkey missile crisis. And no doubt nuclear deterrence also plays a role today, limiting the attacks on Israel, U.S. support for Israeli attacks on Arab-Muslim states ­ Syria-Iran in particular ­and any attack on Russia-China. But nuclear deterrence is not the material out of which positive peace is made: no depolarisation, and certainly no solution and conciliation.

The Cold War NATO-Warsaw Pact system was polarised, with secret police controlling contacts, speech and thoughts, looking for traitors. But the world was not polarised: there was the huge non-aligned movement. Europe was not polarised: there were the 10 neutral, or non-aligned, countries. And ultimately a strong movement against war emerged.

The NATO+-SCO+ system is less polarised, but the world and Europe more. So far, no non-aligned movement, and no strong peace movement.

The United Nations vote showed a 3/4 world united in YES for Palestine, NO to USA-Israel. Both are turning any moral high ground into moral deficit through continued expansion-occupation-siege and invasion-occupation-extrajudicial killings. The world is not against U.S.-Israel defending true homeland borders or 1967 borders but against the force and excesses they seem incapable of reversing. Reverse those policies and they could regain the moral high ground.

But still no actors carrying concrete peace policies like the Helsinki Accords. The reason lies in the difference between the West-Islam and the West-communism conflicts. Islam, Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, covers more of the world territory and population than the West, but has few friends outside; unlike the West, emulated and admired by Russia-China-India, by Latin America and Africa. In all but Israel, Islam has a huge and growing diaspora by immigration-birth-conversion. Not a superpower, not an alliance, only “Islamic cooperation”; but present everywhere.

The result is uncertainty and fear: what do they want? A challenge to other worldviews, guaranteed by the freedoms of speech and religion. Islam offers healing togetherness and sharing to a West suffering from materialist individualism and egoism.

But Islam also threatens Western institutions with unwanted change. Western secular states won the struggle against the church with a secularism also exported to the Muslim colonies as loyalty to the state and the empires behind them. Today parts of the Islamic diaspora hit back, demanding loyalty to Alla’h and the ummah (community) beyond loyalty to Western states.

For immigration to be a peace-building effort, immigrants must respect laws and customs of the host country and be met with curiosity and respect in dialogues, for mutual learning benefiting all. If broken by either or both, stop immigration, and build ummah at home.

How about the other danger spots and zones in the world?

Afghanistan is coming to a close, not only with NATO withdrawal–except to guard what it was all about: a base for a possible war with China and an oil pipeline. There may be wars between India and Pakistan, but no other country feels strongly enough about Kashmir to participate. The world is concerned with Israel not because of anti-Semitism, but because of an alliance that may involve so much of the rest of the world.

North Korea has both nuclear arms and missiles, and will neither attack nor be attacked. The fight for peace treaty and normalisation with the U.S. will probably bear fruits, in the interest of all.

Taiwan and China will slowly converge toward a Hong Kong style solution of one country-two systems, Taiwan as part of China yet highly autonomous. Wisdom would urge the same for a limited Tibet. In neither case do we have conflicts out of which a third world war is made. For that to happen the ties have to be tight, like U.S. to other NATO countries and to Israel. Or, presumably, Russia and China to each other.

We are left with West-Islam. The lack of cohesion on the Islamic side helps. But we are missing a non-aligned Hindu India, lined up with the West in any major confrontation. Indonesia and Egypt are on the Islamic side, neutral Yugoslavia no longer exists, Latin America is Christian-West, and Africa is divided.

We need moderates on both sides. Tunisia-Turkey and the non-aligned powers, Egypt and Indonesia. And the West—maybe Germany, experienced in inter-faith dialogue? Germany should play a major peace role!

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* Johan Galtung, rector of the TRANSCEND Peace University, is author of “The Fall of the US Empire–And Then What?” (www.transcend.org/tup)

The Israeli attack seems imminent. Israeli blogger Richard Silverstein circulates a leaked “shock and awe” strategy of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Ehud Barak hard zionism to decapitate, paralyze Iran, and New York University professor Alon Ben-Meir warns against believing that Israel is bluffing.

Johan Galtung

Israel may prefer doing so with the U.S. Some believe the nuclear bomb story, others believe that the purpose is Israel as a Jewish state from the Nile to the Euphrates, the Stern Gang charter also promoted by Netanyahu’s late father. The two stories do not exclude each other.

Iran is a Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) observer. An attack may trigger responses from the core members, Russia and China. What Israel may gain in Saudi Arabia Sunni support they may lose in considerably more important parts of the world in diplomatic and economic relations. SCO is huge. There is also the real danger of a world war of NATO against SCO.

Iranian devastating responses will come before decapitation is effective, and, maybe those heads are well protected and have alternate systems? Israelis are clever at destructive work, but may also underestimate their enemies.

An old Jewish proverb says, “The best way to get rid of your enemies is to make them your friends.” Bombing Iran would win Israel no true friends, it would only ignite Iran’s desire to develop nuclear weapons, with full understanding from most of the world.

To prove its claim of purely peaceful uses of nuclear energy, Iran should open its nuclear facilities to unimpeded inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency. But Israel should do the same. The double-standard, “we have a right to possess nuclear weapons, you don’t” is untenable.

Uri Avnery, in “A Putsch Against War: Generals and secret police chiefs get together for an attack on the politicians,” writes: “In our country we are now seeing a verbal uprising against the elected politicians by a group of current and former army generals who condemn the government’s threat to start a war against Iran, and some of them condemning the government’s failure to negotiate with the Palestinians for peace.”

Some call anyone who criticizes Israeli policies an “anti-Semite” or a “self-hating Jew”. But who is a better friend, when someone walks blindfolded towards an abyss: who says, “go right ahead, you are on the right track”, or who says, “stop, turn around, you are in grave danger”? Do not try to turn attention away from Israel’s real crises, described by Peter Beinart in “The Crisis of Zionism” and Gershom Gorenberg in “The Unmaking of Israel” (2011).

The solution is a Middle East nuclear-free zone including Iran and Israel. 64 percent of Israelis are in favor, the same in Iran, provided Israel participates. Negotiate such an agreement, and there would be a sigh of relief all over–and both countries would be embraced.

The West is now paying for the 1953 CIA-MI6 coup ousting Iran’s democratically elected president Muhammad Mossadegh and bringing in 25 years of Shah dictatorship. Apologies might carry us far toward solving the “nuclear crisis” which will get worse unless a miracle happens: the U.S./U.K. choose rationality, mediation and conciliation rather than violence and escalation.

Such miracles do occur: Margaret Thatcher sent British troops to Northern Ireland, refusing to talk with “terrorists”, letting hunger strikers die. Tony Blair chose a different course from what he practised with regard to Muslims: he began a dialogue with Sinn Fein, and started withdrawing the British army. Since then no more IRA bombs have exploded in England. Netanyahu=Thatcher.

Is Anglo-America strong enough to admit past mistakes? Or are they still so addicted to belligerence that they prefer another major mistake?

Or, could it be that the whole nuclear issue is only a pretext to pave the way for the dream, Israel between Nile and Euphrates?

That will never work. Israel can attain lasting security only through peace with its neighbours, like in a Middle East Community of Israel with its five Arab neighbours, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Palestine, recognized according to international law, 1967 borders with some exchanges, Israeli cantons on the West bank and Palestinian cantons in northwest Israel. A community modeled after the six-state European Economic Community of 1958, one of the most successful peace projects in history, ending centuries of war between many of the member states.

Decisions would have to be by consensus. Start slowly with free flow of goods, persons, services, ideas; settlement and investment later. Build confidence. Change a relation badly broken by naqba into a peaceful, evolving relation.

Add an open-ended Conference on Security and Cooperation in West Asia, where all parties are at the table and all issues on the table, modeled after the 1972-75 Helsinki Conference, which prepared the end of the Cold War. It can lead to an Organization for Security and Cooperation in West Asia, similar to the OSCE. Entirely feasible, with some will. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

* Johan Galtung, a professor of Peace Studies, is rector of the TRANSCEND Peace University. He is author of many books on peace and related issues, including “50 Years – 100 Peace and Conflict Perspectives”.