There are so many players and so many imponderables. Truly it is a region on a knife edgeIsrael’s year-long war in Gaza (and the accompanying violence perpetrated against Palestinians in the West Bank), and its ever-expanding military campaign against Lebanon, have led to humanitarian catastrophe and the heightened risk of an all-out regional war. But the wider consequences may ultimately be a great rupture in international relations, and the accelerated decline of the US-led international liberal capitalist order that has prevailed since the end of the second world war.Fawaz Gerges is professor of international relations at the London School of Economics. His most recent book is What Really Went Wrong: The West and the Failure of Democracy in the Middle EastLeila Seurat is a researcher at the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, Paris, and the author of The Foreign Policy of Hamas: Ideology, Decision Making and Political Supremacy Continue reading...