Imagining World War III - a vision

I don't have an uncle to cite as my source, and I can't give you a date, but I can imagine a nuclear war in the not too distant future as a real possibility. My vision isn't based on some dream, but a profound unease based on analyzing how things could happen in shot order. Should a war break out between the United States and Israel on one side, and Iran on the other, and if that war is not resolved very quickly and decisively (and I believe it would not be), then here's how I imagine it playing out.

With overwhelming firepower, the American military destroys the Iranian state military, but when they go into the country proper, they find people armed for resistance in far greater numbers and with better weapons than Afghanistan. The destruction of U.S. Navy vessels stokes the American anger as troops pour into Iran, but while they move into the cities, armed guerillas with weaponry and increasingly radicalized views come together to fight. Joining with their Taliban counterparts, they share tactics as Afghanistan goes into full revolt, and parts of Iraq behave similarly.American reprisals lead to attacks in Afghanistan and into Pakistan, further destabilizing that country and leading to more radicalization.

While this is happening, Israel is under siege from Syria and Lebanon. Turkish involvement in Syria mitigates the damage, but Egypt remains a wild card as rockets rain down on Tel Aviv from Palestine and the Heights, shot back in return by the IDF. The Gulf States demand the Americans bring the war to a quick close as their own states are becoming restless, but for all their strength, the Americans cannot contain the brushfire they set. Moreover, the resistance is improving, and receives help from China via Pakistan.

Angered by this, the Americans attack Pakistani convoys, bringing that nation into war on the Iranian side, and creating a swath of anger and resistance from Najaf in Iraq all the way to Kashmir on the Indian border. A jihad is declared by grand clerics of not just the Shi'a persuation, but also the Sunni, as American forces put more restrictive laws into place in an attempt to quell these uprisings. Global coverage of the bombings, of dead civilians, further enflames tensions in the west, putting Turkey in a difficult spot, and leading to uprisings in Baghdad and Cairo. A charismatic leader emerges for the resistance, a man of piety and who grieves for the many dead, and draws support across borders for a war fought now town by town.

The resistance is effective, and with Americans dying in numbers, attacks against American targets succeed not just abroad, but also some at home. Attacks in European allies also happen. Israel is afire, with attacks coming from the west and the north. Then, under the Muslim Brotherhood majority, Egypt goes to war with Israel for the last time.

The predicted clash of civilizations becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy as a new Muslim identity stretches from the Horn of Africa to the borders of India, and with that, the west begins to have the real fear that there will now be a radical form of Islam, fanned by their own engine of war, coupled with the powers of a new state that could emerge as a real counterbalance. As the west despairs for what to do, the Israelis realize there is only one solution given all who have been killed, who have been angered, and how this fight has become one where there can be only winner.

They nuke every major Islamic city from the nations attacking them and in this war, turning Mecca, Medina, Jeddah, Riyadh, Cairo, Alexandria, Khartoum, Mogadishu, Damascus, Beirut, Baghdad, Basra, Tehran, Qom, Isfahar, Kabul, Kandahar, Karachi, and Islamabad, and possibly others, into dust. An international pariah for taking this action, the world turns on Israel which is then destroyed in its own right, leaving the middle east as shards of glass, both Israel and the Islamic world irrevocably destroyed, the American military severely wounded though the country would be intact, and the wars at an end.

As for Russia and China, they win by not playing, adding their satellite states in close proximity as America sulks home, her European partners look away as a resurgent Germany takes greater control of the EU, and the future becomes more uncertain, but very much less religious as over a billion people die.

While it might not be the doom you're looking for, it's the doom that I think about and imagine as very real, knowing that if it does happen, the odds of some terrorist taking real shots in the west are very good. Though they may not be nuclear, the next major war could come very quickly, and what starts out as a managed conflict might come very quickly. The pieces are there in place now.