New concerns that Israel’s war in Gaza could widen with serious economic and political consequences are being raised by escalating attacks on US troops and commercial ships.

With US service personnel increasingly in the firing line and US and allied naval assets on high alert following multiple drone strikes, the worsening situation is leading to a tense period.

As CNN points out in its analysis, the growing maritime dangers from the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea stretching through Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Israel is a harbinger of a new unwanted external crisis. Israel’s warnings that its war against Hamas in Gaza will last months, despite US pressure to de-escalate the fighting, threaten to increase the chances of the war spiraling out of control.

Storm of dangerous escalations

The initial concern that a regional war could break out after Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel involving Hezbollah has so far not materialized. But the pace of attacks in recent days between Israel and Hezbollah appears to be gaining momentum, fueling fears of further escalation.

Biden ordered airstrikes on Monday against facilities used by pro-Iranian militia fighters in Iraq, who the US accused of using drones to attack the Erbil air base, seriously injuring a US soldier.

US forces on Tuesday intercepted drones and missiles over the Red Sea launched by the Houthi rebels. The US has said Iranian intelligence has been involved in planning attacks on merchant shipping that have led some merchant ships to divert to Africa instead of the most economical route through the Suez Canal, sparking fears about the global chain supply.

Global instability is also spreading to India after a chemical tanker operating in the Indian Ocean was shot down by an Iranian drone on Saturday, 200 nautical miles off the Indian coast, the Pentagon said. Iran has repeatedly denied involvement.

The consequences of a constantly worsening situation

The spate of new incidents taking place and highlighting the possibility of a dangerous escalation of the war reveal the extent to which US forces are directly exposed and explain the increasingly urgent calls from Washington to Israel to end the war in Gaza.

Christopher O’Leary, a former director of hostage recovery for the US government, told “CNN News Central” on Tuesday that while the regional situation had not approached worst-case scenarios so far, the potential for the situation to worsen is always there.

“The Israel-Hamas war is part of a larger plan by the axis of resistance, the Iranian-controlled strategy of gaining regional influence and power through proxy groups such as Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, Kataib Hezbollah and the Hootie,” O’Leary said.

“So although there have been ongoing attacks, for now they have been limited to Houthi attacks on ships in the Red Sea. But these are only warnings of what could come next. If Iran shows its real power, then there will be a real problem in the region, against the US troops stationed in Iraq and Syria,” he adds.

Economic as well as military consequences

A widened conflict could have dire economic consequences, given the critical importance of the Red Sea to global supply chain routes for energy and goods. The waterway is bordered on the east by Yemen and Saudi Arabia and on the west by Eritrea, Sudan and Egypt. Given the recent threatening situation in the Red Sea, companies have ordered their ships to follow a more expensive and time-consuming route around Africa. The potential economic turmoil prompted the United States to form an international coalition to protect merchant shipping from Houthi attacks. The United States said before Christmas that nations including the United Kingdom, Bahrain, Canada, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway and the Seychelles had signed on to provide assistance in the Red Sea. Greece is among them.

The Houthis have launched at least 100 attacks against 12 different commercial and merchant ships in the Red Sea in the past month, in a “very significant range of attacks” not seen in at least “two generations,” a senior U.S. military official said last week. .

The possibility of military action in the Middle East is the last thing Biden — who is already deeply invested in trying to save Ukraine from a Russian attack — would want to deal with as he begins 2024. On the other hand, Benjamin Netanyahu visited troops in Gaza earlier this month and said it was a “long-term struggle”. However, this is a scenario that the US, and especially Biden, cannot and does not want to allow to become a long-term reality.