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Indeed, i don't think a large war in the Middle-East could evolve into WWIII, the European wars of the first half of the 20th century evolved into world wars because European countries had colonies all over the planet and extensive systems of alliances, Middle-Eastern countries have no such things.
That being said, i do think that a large scale war in the Middle-East is highly probable in the first half of this century, there are just too many people who want it.
First there are Shias and Sunnis who are literally at each other's throats and would welcome a general conflict to settle things out, there's also the century old ethnic rivalry between Persians and Arabs which is climaxing again, and even Israel would welcome a large scale regional war which would allow it to complete the annexation of the occupied territories (and expulsion of the remaining Arab inhabitants).
The Kurds could also benefit from a large scale conflict to create an independant Kurdistan.
The Middle-East has many problems, but peaceful means have only stalled those problems without solving anything, and just like Europe in the 1930s, war seems to be the inevitable outcome.
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