(MENAFN- Jordan Times) In 1914 the European great powers, three of whose heads of state belonged to the same family, entered into war on a trivial occasion, but for political, economic and military rivalries.
The results were disastrous for all the participants' political systems, economic interests, civilian populations and cultural treasures.
In 1939, the sequel to the Great War was equally, if not more, disastrous for them all.
In both wars the United States played a decisive role in defeating Germany and in building a new consortium of European states based on a close relationship between Great Britain, France and Germany, and the formation of the European Union.
In both wars the Middle East, including Turkey, Iran and the Arab territories, was the scene of military confrontations and political rivalries between the major players, but governments in the region played no decisive role in either the causes or the final outcomes of these wars.
The international political, economic and military situation has now changed: the Middle East has become a player in the new but confused rivalries between Europe and the US.
These confused rivalries may become the flashpoint of a major international military confrontation whose boundaries cannot be foreseen.
Slogans reveal some but not all the motives that send soldiers and civilians to fight and die.
In World War I, it was patriotism and the fatherland, in the second, it was ideology, national socialism and communism.
No such slogans have yet emerged for a third to erupt, but anti-terrorism and Islamophobia are candidates.
What is not clear is who are friends and who are enemies.
The government of Saudi Arabia, backed by a coalition of Arab, American and European governments, is fighting a war against Iran in Yemen; it is funding a war in Syria against the Syrian regime; and it is threatening Qatar, a member of the alliance of Gulf states.
At the same time, the American government maintains its most important military base in Qatar, and sells weapons to its government.
The government of Turkey, a NATO member, has a military base in Qatar and supports its government. The Iranian government also supports Qatar.
The crisis in the Gulf shows that US President Donald Trump's attempt to form an alliance of Sunni states against Shiite Iran is failing, and that Russia, Turkey and Iran have the potential to change the balance of power in the Middle East.
It also reveals that policies based on the illusion of an organic Sunni-Shiite 'divide' are doomed to fail.
Qatar and Syria now constitute the most dangerous scenarios for a third world war.
An erratic American president and government divided on issues of foreign and domestic policies, and only united in their support for an Israeli government benefiting from the inter-Arab quarrels and conflicts and a Europe weakened by the uncertainties and dangers of incoherent British politics cannot provide a serious and reliable source of opposition to the autocratic governments of Russia, Turkey and Iran.
At this dangerous moment of time, when the peoples of the Middle East are suffering unprecedented miseries of war, famine and displacement, it is imperative that a clear and loud voice be heard from those in whose name wars and tyrannies flourish.
Anti-Muslim, anti-Christian and anti-Jewish sentiments and actions conceal the realities of international rivalries that wish to control or seize sources of economic and financial power, and through them to dominate peoples.
Jerusalem, Rome, Mecca, Karbala and Cairo are not irrelevant if they speak together and send the same message.
The writer, former professor at AUB, is a self-employed writer and an observer of Middle East events. He contributed this article to The Jordan Times.
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