Editorial

During a visit to Israel last summer, the then Senator Barack Obama could not have expressed himself more clearly: "If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I'm going to do everything in my power to stop that. And I would expect Israel to do the same." Israel is now doing just that but stopping the rockets is one thing but going beyond is another.

The massive retaliatory attacks carried out during the past few days - and nights - by the Israeli military machine may have been unexpected. They are a response to months of rocket attacks on Israeli territories by gunmen in Hamas-run Gaza. One report estimated that 8,000 rocket attacks were launched by Hamas gunmen over the past four years.

The Israeli leadership has decided that enough was enough, hence the immensely punitive raids on targets it reckons will weaken Hamas and divorce the leadership from the Palestinians. This may turn out to be a dubious strategic objective.

The loss of innocent life in the Gaza strip has been substantial, so far, and may increase during the first week of a new year into which the Middle East has stumbled so painfully. Nobody can regard this with anything but shock. The situation as it has unfolded since last Saturday has been nothing less than traumatising for the victims. It is yet another of those tragic episodes that continue to occur in that unholy Holy Land.

The "Quartet" of Middle East peace brokers yesterday called for an immediate ceasefire. EU foreign ministers met to review the situation. So have Arab heads of state, some of whom, it needs to be remembered, have little or no time for the fundamentalist stand adopted by Hamas.

The year 2009 could not get off to a worse start even in that part of the world. Ironically, it is in Iraq that there has been considerable improvement. Afghanistan is creating new worries because Europe, for the most part and Britain a notable exception, continues to regard that crisis as one that is taking place in a far away country - not a Nato concern, some wrongly argue - and Iran is poised to become even more of a problem for peace in the region as it moves in the direction of becoming a nuclear power. The 44th President of the United States has more than enough on his plate even before the removal firm carries his stuff to his new residence in the White House.

Mr Obama may indeed discover that the region will be his 9/11 during his first four years in office. The only light, if he peers strongly enough in its direction to detect it at all, is being shed by a growing possibility of a peace agreement between Israel and Syria. But there is darkness again provided by the certainty that if Iran is allowed to join the nuclear club, then Saudi Arabia will sign up for membership, too. And if Saudi Arabia, why not Egypt and other countries southwards in that dark continent?

Then there is Vladimir Putin, who seems to have successfully resurrected the notorious Stalin from his well-deserved grave of infamy. He, too, will give Mr Obama a run for his money - and that, sometime soon. Expect turbulence over the next six months as Russia, China and North Korea, never mind Iran, test out the leader of the western world.