Wednesday, January 17, 2024
Wait a minute... who is attacking who?
As conflict grows on the other side of the world, I often have to refer to a map to remember who is who, and how they are related to one another. Here is just some of it:
-- On the left side of this map, we have Israel, that is involved in an occupation of Gaza to its south while engaging in conflicts with groups in Lebanon to the north and the West Bank to the, well, west. Many of those opposed to Israel are sponsored by Iran, in the middle of the map.
-- Iran, in turn, just attacked groups in Pakistan, to its west, and Iraq, to its east.
-- The Houthi rebels, in Yemen at the bottom of the map, are attacking shipping in the Red Sea. They have been at war with Saudi Arabia, to Yemen's north.
-- Iran is the hub of much of this, but at the edges of this map are a number of other conflicts. India often is in conflict with Pakistan. Azerbaijan, at the top left, is often at war with its neighbor Armenia (which is on the map but not labeled, just below Georgia). Turkey is in conflict with Kurds in Iraq. Afghanistan is... well, still messy.
With all these interconnected conflicts, it could spin into a very scary larger war. It's worth keeping an eye on...
