COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- It’s almost been a year since Oct. 7, the day Hamas attacked Israel and started a major conflict in the Middle East. On Tuesday, the conflict escalated when Iran launched an attack against Israel.  Some people may now be wondering what effect we may see here in the United States.  Speaking out against domestic violence in Franklin County Dr. Ori Yehudai, an associate professor of history at Ohio State University, teaches a class on the history of the conflict in the Middle East. Over the past year, he said enrollment has been up and students seem to be impacted by the news they are hearing from overseas.  “Many people care about political events, they care about war, they care about the suffering of civilians. so I think many people connect to those issues on a human level even if they don’t have personal connections,” Yehudai said.  Watch: How war in the Middle East could affect Ohio, U.S. Besides the emotional impact, Yehudai said we could also see an impact on the economy and on the U.S.’s global standing because of the latest escalation.  Dr. Scott Smitson, a professor of political science at Denison University, agrees with Yehudai.  “If the war is no longer contained in Israel and Lebanon and it’s a war that stretches from Egypt to Pakistan, that will have significant worldwide impacts on energy, the cost of food, transportation, all those things,” Smitson said.  The scary thing right now, according to Smitson, is there isn’t much anyone can do to stop the crisis from escalating even further. He said the latest series of attacks are unprecedented, so the future is uncertain. Delaware home contractor sued by Ohio Attorney General for second time “It’d be very presumptuous to say what comes next because we don’t know,” Smitson said. “There have been so many of these steps we would never expect to see this happen or that happen and it’s played out in the last 12 months.”  Both Smitson and Yehundai recommended people stay informed on the war in the Middle East because they said they don’t expect it will get better any time soon.  “This looks like we are heading towards an escalation but we’ll still have to see what will be the decision of the Israeli leadership,” Yehudai said.  Smitson added that whoever is elected president of the United States this November will have to deal with the war because he said it won’t be over by the inauguration in January.