In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood has replaced Hosni Mubarak, who kept the peace in Sinai and the lid on Hamas. Recently, new Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi met with Hamas’ Khaled Meshaal at the presidential palace in Cairo. The Sinai is becoming a no man’s land where terrorists plot and Africans cross to Israel.

To Israel’s east, there is no true peace with the Palestinians, and the Jordanian throne has rarely been shakier. On the Golan Heights, quiet for decades, the future may see Syrian troops loyal to a militant Sunni regime in Damascus. Hezbollah sits on Israel’s northern border. Beyond is a Turkey no longer friendly.

Israel is blaming the atrocity in Bulgaria, in which Israeli tourists were massacred, on Iran. But neither the Bulgarians nor the Americans appear to know who did it. And why would the Iranians, who, following the slaughter, publicly denounced such atrocities against civilians, do it?

Were an Iranian hand to be found in this act of barbarism, it would give Israel justification for an attack, igniting a war in which America could be dragged in.

Why would Iran want a war with the United States when that would mean destruction of its air force, navy, missile force and nuclear program, a crippling blockade and perhaps destruction of its vital oil facilities on Kharg Island?

Whoever was behind the attack on the Israeli tourists seems to want a war between the Jewish state of Israel and the Shia state of Iran.

Who would benefit from such a war?

Answer: Al-Qaida, which, during the Iraq War, urged the United States to bomb Iran back to the Stone Age. An al-Qaida affiliate has also attacked Israeli vacationers before, at Egyptian resorts on the Gulf of Aqaba.

“There is an international plot against Gulf states in particular and Arab countries in general … to take over our fortunes,” says Dubai’s chief of police. “I had no idea that there is this large number of Muslim Brotherhood in the Gulf states.”

What is al-Qaida’s goal? Ignite Sunni-Shia wars and Muslim-Christian clashes in Arab states. Draw in the Americans to smash Iran. And when the Sunni are ascendant, expel the Americans and Christians, isolate Israel and set about creating the caliphate of Osama bin Laden’s dream.

If a U.S. war on Iran is good for al-Qaida, how can it be good or us?

Image courtesy of Shuttestock