What if the Lebanon war escalated?

I am currently working on a new graphic novel that is based around a world war in the 80s and am in the process of working out the kinks as to make the timeline as believable as possible. My question is What if and How could the Lebanon war of 1982 have escalated? As I've been studying up on this conflict I'm finding it more and more difficult for this war to work as a catalyst for ww3.
But alas I want this POD to somehow be the catalyst, even if it means altering history in other ways.

What do you think could have led this war to a breaking point?
 
Well...I think this is kind of a stretch, but once you have Syria and Israel involved, you could theoretically get the US and USSR coming in.

I think something you'd need though is direct conflict between Syrian and Israeli forces to get that kind of escalation. OTL, there was only ever combat between them mediated by proxies. If you can somehow get Syria and Israel fighting each other in Lebanon, it could expand into a full war between them across the Golan as well, and maybe something happens that's severe enough to get the major powers involved?
 
Well...I think this is kind of a stretch, but once you have Syria and Israel involved, you could theoretically get the US and USSR coming in.

I think something you'd need though is direct conflict between Syrian and Israeli forces to get that kind of escalation. OTL, there was only ever combat between them mediated by proxies. If you can somehow get Syria and Israel fighting each other in Lebanon, it could expand into a full war between them across the Golan as well, and maybe something happens that's severe enough to get the major powers involved?

I think if we are arguing theoreticals then it might be pretty easy to get those two countries fighting. You could literally say anything could happen, like maybe a surprise Syrian-Egyptian and maybe Jordanian alliance invading Israel while their military is occupied in Lebanon?
My point is to have a scenario that works, in theory, after all my graphic novel is more artistic in nature than hardcore realism.
 
I think it is hard to get the US and USSR to come to blows with each other.

You could have a coup against Mubarak and hardcore Islamists take power in Egypt and decide to invade Israel. Syria decides to join in as well. The USSR could supply Egypt and Syria with weapons and the US would of course supply Israel. But trying to come up with a scenario where the US and USSR start shooting at each other is tough.
 
I think it is hard to get the US and USSR to come to blows with each other.

You could have a coup against Mubarak and hardcore Islamists take power in Egypt and decide to invade Israel. Syria decides to join in as well. The USSR could supply Egypt and Syria with weapons and the US would of course supply Israel. But trying to come up with a scenario where the US and USSR start shooting at each other is tough.

unless you devised a way for Saudi Arabia to be threatened thus causing the U.S. to fear that their oil will be threatened by the Soviets.
 
I'm tying my scenario in with Able Archer 83, which I'm sure you've all heard of, in which the very heightened tensions between the US and USSR because of the war in the middle east causes fighting to break out in West/East Germany, followed by a full scale invasion of West Germany by the Warsaw pact.

But before that can happen I have to have a scenario that leads to a full scale war in the middle east.
 
I'm tying my scenario in with Able Archer 83, which I'm sure you've all heard of, in which the very heightened tensions between the US and USSR because of the war in the middle east causes fighting to break out in West/East Germany, followed by a full scale invasion of West Germany by the Warsaw pact.

But before that can happen I have to have a scenario that leads to a full scale war in the middle east.
I believe the Marine Barracks bombing occurred around the time of Able Archer 83. Maybe the US decides to react with overwhelming force to eliminate the perpetrators and combined with Able Archer's movements the Soviets decide to attack first using the traditional theory that they invade through the Fulda Gap
 
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