Cuban missile crisis was last time world felt in such peril

I have been frequently asked in the last few days whether I could recall a time as dangerous as this feels today. Yes, the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962.

- JACK STRAW

That was terrifying for the whole world, as the two major superpowers, the US and the Soviet Union, faced off. I was scared stiff. After 13 days, when the world really did appear to hold its breath, the crisis was resolved by diplomatic means.

And so to the question today and the threat of this sparking a nuclear armageddon we live in fear of - existential or otherwise.

Violence is literally chaos. Wars rarely go according to plan.

History shows us that a relatively prosaic error by one commander on the ground can sometimes spark a conflagration.

Thus, nothing is certain about the Iran-Israel conflict right now.

Could Pakistan - and other countries in the region - come out actively to support Iran in its struggle with Israel, as was reported on Monday?

Frankly, I see little prospect of Pakistan, or other key Muslim countries, or Russia or China, getting involved militarily in this conflict. Suggestions on Monday that Pakistan could use its nuclear arsenal against Israel if the latter uses nuclear weapons against Iran came not from any official Pakistani spokesperson, but from General Mohsen Rezaee of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps in a TV interview in Tehran.

These suggestions have not been confirmed by any official Pakistani source. The odds of Israel using nuclear weapons against Iran are long, to non-existent. It is almost certain that Donald Trump would veto such a move, and the Israelis have such an upper hand in the conflict that they would not need to contemplate this. Iran itself is close to being able to produce a nuclear weapon, but it has not yet done so.

On Sunday, Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian was reported as telling his cabinet, "We expect Muslim and [Middle East] regional countries to adopt a clear, firm, and effective position against the aggression of the Zionists and their supporters".