With all the upheaval in the region at the moment it’s sometimes difficult to know just which way to look to be ready for the next potential threat to come our way. The old ‘eyes in the back of your head’ adage was never truer. Let’s just have a quick recap of what’s going on here, because it’s very easy to lose track of just where the latest uprising is taking place.

Well, as we now know, the regime of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt caved in last week and all eyes are on the most populous Arab state in the region to see just what will happen next. A new constitution is due to be unveiled next week guaranteeing more rights, but will it be enough to satisfy those who successfully brought down a seemingly impenetrable ruler, to stay calm and wait for the promised elections? And what about the Muslim Brotherhood? They’re playing a canny game at the moment, saying they won’t even field a presidential candidate and they just want to be part of the democratic process. I find it hard to believe, judging on their overall profile. I took a few moments to visit the Palestinian Media Watch website section on the Muslim Brotherhood where the following excerpt just about summed up the aims of the organization that is attempting to portray itself as a democratic, reasonable Muslim movement.

“It should be known that Jihad and preparation towards Jihad are not only for the purpose of fending-off assaults and attacks of Allah’s enemies from Muslims, but are also for the purpose of realizing the great task of establishing an Islamic state and strengthening the religion and spreading it around the world…”

These words were written by Mustafa Mashhur, the late Supreme Guide of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in his seminal work ‘ Jihad is the way’ – great bedtime reading with a cup of cocoa and a hot-water bottle.

I believe, (and I am certainly not only in this thought), that the Brotherhood is just sitting back and letting the well intentioned Egyptian secular, educated classes do all the donkey work in removing the regime and establishing elections, before moving in with the support of other like-minded groups to do what Ayatollah Khomenei did in Iran in 1979. That, of course, would be an incredibly worrying development for Israel and the whole region.

Tunisia has already removed its leader, the Yemen is in a state of chaos, Bahrain is experiencing demonstrators rioting and demanding improved human rights, and even Libya is experiencing a degree of uprising. Colonel Khadaffi has been in charge there for an amazing 42 years – those poor Libyans – and won’t release his iron grip on power without a very big fight. (By the way, is he still a colonel, or did he promote himself a while back? If I was going to be a psychotic dictator, I’d at least grant myself the rank of general. He’s missed a trick there).

I always remember the days when dear old Ronald Regan was US president and was often a little confused about the world beyond his White House doorstep. There was a great line on one of the Saturday Night Live shows where they staged a dummy White House press conference and the reporter asked the Reagan character, ‘Mr President, what’s your opinion about Khadaffi?’ Ronnie juggled his head from side to side for a moment, before replying, ‘I just love that little duck’.

Quite what will happen next in Libya remains to be seen, but it adds to the uncertainly that has swept across the region.

Rather closer to home, Sheikh Nasrallah the leader of the terrorist group Hezbollah that now controls the Lebanese government following the ousting of PM Hariri, has been ranting about taking over the north of Israel. He says that if there is the slightest provocation he will send Hezbollah forces through the Galilee region. (I’m not sure what his definition of ‘provocation’ is. If it’s Jews breathing, then we could be in for one a hell of a fight!)

With the UN having stood idly by for the last four years and allowed Hezbollah to rebuild and strengthen all their military bases along the northern border, his is not a boast to be scoffed at. He is a very dangerous man with many fanatical supporters, but with his paymasters Syria and Iran also facing street protests and potential challenges to their regimes, you wonder whether now is the right time for Nasrallah to start banging the drum.

Potentially the most dangerous development of all though is set to take place this coming weekend, if media reports are to be believed. Taking advantage of the upheaval and chaos going on in Egypt, it is reported that at least two Iranian warships have set out to make their way through the Suez Canal and into the Mediterranean, allegedly heading for Syria. (Yes, Syria has a Meditteranean coast – I had to check the map too!)

No Iranian ships have been through the canal since 1979 when Anwar Sadat, (ideologically opposed to the new Islamist state), closed the waterways to Iranian traffic. Mubarak continued the same policy for the security of the region as a whole from 1981 until last week, but now, with Egypt’s military having enough problems just trying to keep the streets quiet, it appears Ahmedinejad has seen his chance to break the embargo and sail his warships through into the Med, potentially moving close to Israeli territorial waters as they go to Syria.

What though if they decide they want to stop for a bit of sight-seeing in Gaza? Drop off a few thousand missiles or several 100 tonnes of high explosives? Israel, of course would never allow them near Gaza as the whole port is under military embargo, but could Ahmedinejad be fashioning a naval stand-off to try and deflect attention away from the rise in support once more for the Green Democratic Movement on the streets of Tehran? 

He should ask Maggie Thatcher just what good a naval expedition and a bit of a war can do for morale back home when your economy is at rock bottom and there is rising discontent, even if it means getting into a needless fight and losing countless lives. It goes without saying however that Ahmedinejad would find the Israeli military a rather different prospect to the army of reluctant Argentinian conscripts that faced the professional British forces in the needless Falklands War in 1982.

So, all in all, things are just a little tense here, to say the least. Israelis though seem to take it all in their stride. They’ve been here before and had to deal with whatever is thrown at them. It doesn’t mean they have accepted the status quo and don’t want there to be a genuine peace with their neighbours. It’s just that they know it will almost certainly be a long time coming. No sooner do you get used to peace with one country close by, than another pops up and starts causing trouble.

If only these new democratic movements in the Arab world could actually work and really achieve something. It would be wonderful, but is highly unlikely.

A final thought. Why is it that the Iranian president so reminds me of Mel Brooks’ Hitler caricature in the film ‘To Be Or Not To Be’? Shalom from Israel, and I’ll leave you in the capable hands of Mr Brooks and his well observed song from the move’ I Want A Little Peace’....