A widened Middle East war would be a disaster, but it can still be avoided

Anxiety mounts every day that a full-scale Middle East war could erupt from the flames of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

“We feel and we’re afraid of it,” Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour this week. “We don’t want any escalation in the war. … We don’t like a regional war because it’s dangerous to everybody. Dangerous to Lebanon, dangerous to Israel and to the countries surrounding Israel,” he said, adding, “A regional war is bad for everybody.”

But the one thing that could avert such a disaster is that a more expansive conflict may not be in the vital national interests of any of the region’s major powers.

And while key states and extremist groups appear to be walking right up to the brink, there’s still hope that the economic, political and military consequences of an escalation will be so grave, that they will stop just short of escalation.

Almost every day brings another violent incident. On Thursday, for instance, the US carried out a strike in Baghdad that killed a leader from an Iran-backed militia that Washington blames for attacks against US personnel in the region. US troops in Iraq and Syria tasked with keeping a lid on ISIS have repeatedly come under rocket and drone attacks from Tehran’s proxies.

Fighting is intensifying between Israel and another pro-Iranian group, Hezbollah, across the Lebanon border. In another alarming sign, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Thursday told US envoy Amos Hochstein that time was running out to create a “new reality” on Israel’s northern border to allow residents there to return to their homes. Israel is, meanwhile, suspected of carrying out an attack on high-ranking Hamas leader, Saleh Al-Arouri, in Beirut, sparking fury among Hezbollah leaders who control the area where he was killed.

In another alarming incident, US…