[headquarters]

Agood read - if you havent read it. And utterly essential T2K litterature.

In the book the war is started by the clumsy posturing of the armed forces in a poltically unstable situation. A shot gone awry ( AAM actually) ends up killing a few more Pact auxilliaries than can be tolerated by that side-and promptly shooting erupts in a an unstoppable chaos.

I could see this sort of thing leading to that scenario - but I cant really see Iran or Syria actually getting in thight with Turkey on it. They will of course try to make whatever gain they can from the situation -but Damascus or Teheran dont want the Israeli airfrorce to slap`em around too much. The US and other NATO partners will not letthis get to far out of hand I imagine.( Giving concessions and threathening in no uncertain terms more or less)

But to try and make a hypotthetical spark fly and ignite the contrafactual powderkeg-

Possibly the Israelis have learned from the last flotilla of activists and have another tactic and better capacity at hand. That way the 9 deaths that occurred last time will not happen again. On the other hand, it doesnt take more than one commando with a 9 mm sidearm cornered by an angry mob of knife toteing activists to turn a ships deck into a slaughterhouse.

Or worse - damaging a ship making casualties in the high 2 figures. ( To be nasty - if I were a Machiavellian type I would have the Palestinians see to this with a covert op to try to set things off and blame Israel. Or maybe a right wing Israeli group that welcome the war a few nicely placed bombs and some cameramen to record the people being burnt alive/drowning should do it).

Either way the death toll and the proximity of Turkish assets lead to shooting. Maybe Turkey press on further than anyone had believed - conducting some sort of spectacular op that leave the Israelis rattled.

Nato on the sidelines urging both parties to "show restraint".

Syria /Assad sees a way out of his predicament by marshalling the nation to war - and promptly strikes to get a big response from Israel.

In turn ( no matter the outcome of these two wars - and you know Israel isnt going to loose) the situation turns the middle east on to a path of cooperation against the west to a degree not known hithertho. Popular uprisings etc happen bringing other nations into the fold of this anti western league.

In the same period shocking news of dwindling oil reserves bring the end of the petro economy up close in the forseeable future. New major economies in the east scramble to get their deals in.

Having the oil sold to the far east doesnt actually help US or EU economy and things look a bit bleak.

In this enviroment the big boys - US and China start facing off over the resources.

Russia ( mint with resources) starts reestablishing itself as player on the highest tier.
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Just a quick of the top of my head thing to try to postulate how it could park off.