The Great Middle East War

It seems to me that within about five years there will be a Great Middle East War. Here's how things will be arranged to prepare for this war.

1. Iraq

The Status of Forces Agreement between the United States of America and Iraq expires in 2011. If Iraq refuses to renew this agreement with a war-weary America, then a withdrawal may be at hand. Iraq can then call on Iranian peacekeepers if American withdrawal strengthens the insurgency.

2. The Palestinian territories

A peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority is not likely to occur given that the Palestinian Authority refuses to recognize Israel as a Jewish State or renounce the Right of Return (such a renunciation is Israel's goal in demanding recognition as a Jewish State). Palestinian officials have proposed declaring state sovereignty regardless and having the UN intervene to protect Palestine. So perhaps a willing Israel could be "pressured" into handing over control of the Palestinian territories of Gaza and the West Bank over to the United Nations. And then the United Nations could send in a Egyptian-led peacekeeping force into Gaza and a Jordanian-led peacekeeping force into the West Bank. Egypt and Jordan after all have no love towards the Hamas challengers to the authority of the Palestinian Authority given their connections to the Muslim Brotherhood.

3. How It All Comes Together

So with Iranian peacekeepers in Iraq, United Nations peacekeepers in the West Bank and Gaza and Hamas being repressed by the United Nations-protected Palestinian Authority, a call by Hamas for Iranian help against "Fatah traitors" and "sellout tyrants" could lead to Iran occupying Jordan and the West Bank and from there attacking Israel.

Egypt and Saudi Arabia would be unable to stop the Iranians lest they be accused of defending Israel and so Israel would have to fight off a Grand Alliance of Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Iran. And while that does not include the Arabian Peninsula or Arab Africa, it does encompass the rest of the Middle East especially if radicalized Turkey joins in on Iran's side!

My Understanding of Marxist Theory

In particular, the labor theory of value, the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, overproduction and the self-defeating nature of capitalist competition? Like me explain...

The labor theory of value: Marx held that since all goods and services stem from a combination of labor and natural resources and since natural resources are given by nature, the value of goods and services stems from the labor employed in their production.

The tendency of the rate of profit to fall: Since capitalists are in competition for a limited market, they must produce as much as possible. This means that they must revolutionize the means of production in the form of new technology. Since the value of goods and services comes from the labor employed, this means that goods and services produced by the new machines will be sold for less than before and that combined by the cost of the machinery itself drives down the rate of profit.

Overproduction: Since revolutionizing the means of production is both necessary and drives down profit, such advances together with the context of competition for market share will from the standpoint of capitalist profit force the capitalist to overproduce.

The self-defeating nature of capitalist competition: Those capitalists who best maintain a balance between capturing market shares and avoiding overproduction attract more and more capital from investors. Those who do not go bankrupt and are then bought out by the more successful capitalists. This decreases the number of firms and transforms the surviving successful firms from proprietorships to corporations. This end of competition is thus caused by the previous existence of competition.

The Conflict Between Democracy and Zionism

When the Zionists came to the Holy Land, they sought to fulfill their ideology (i.e. form a Jewish State) and create a republic. The result is Israel. With the Jews, democracy is fulfilled as Jews throughout the world are invited to come and vote as citizens (through the Right of Return). But democracy is restricted to Jews--the Arabs behind the Green Line were mostly expelled as a dangerous, hostile element between 1947-1949 while the West Bank and Gaza with their Arab majority are placed under military occupation rather than annexed to the State of Israel (which governs much of the territories anyway).

To solve this contradiction, the State of Israel initiated the Oslo Accords with the goal of returning the West Bank and Gaza to Arab rule and with the hope of convincing the Arabs to renounce any Right to Return behind the Green Line. But for the Arabs, such renunciation would be injustice and they insist on "peace with justice". So assuming that the UN takes over the Peace Process (perhaps after a devastating war), the Palestinians will be able to establish a state in the territories, negotiate (in order to stall for time) and then when the Israelis refuse to accept their Right to Return, rain down missiles on Israel. At which point, the Israelis would have to invade, renouncing the Oslo Accords once and for all. And then what? Well...

As the birthrate of rightwing, religious families of Jews remains high and as the birthrates of Arabs remains high, they become the primary sectors of the population. A variety of worst-case scenarios could easily emerge:

1. The least worst: A one-state solution in which the Jews remain but are plagued by high crime and property disputes.

2. A one-state solution in which the Arabs expel and exterminate the Jews.

3. The replacement of Israeli democracy with a far-right dictatorship. Since the Israeli far-right (the Kahanists, etc.) believe that the solution to terrorism is to expel or kill off the populations in which terrorists hide and since they believe that from the Nile to the Euphrates belongs rightfully to the Jews, I could easily see lots of warfare (which would happen anyway because of the second Nakba and destruction of the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa mosques). Israelis could face conscription for six years active-service and three-months per year reserve-service with rabbis ruling like the mullahs in Iran and Saudi Arabia and the economy can be warped by perpetual militarization as in North Korea.

Am I missing something in my analysis?