Hopefully we will not see a Middle East replay of "The Guns of August," as Barbara Tuchman titled her account of the slide toward World War I. But the region is edgy this summer as negotiators struggle to resolve confrontations with Syria and Iran. One small sign of the rising tension is that Saudi Arabia is said to have alerted some of its military and security officials to cancel their summer leaves. Saudi and U.S. sources say this limited mobilization reflects worries about possible military conflict with Iran, the war of succession in Syria, and Sunni-Shiite tensions in neighboring Bahrain.
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