US could be dragged into fighting between Israel and Iran

OCTOBER 1973 is recalled as the month during which the Watergate Scandal was beginning to engulf Washington and turn into a constitutional crisis, involving the White House, Congress, the courts as well as the press.

That happened after President Richard Nixon ordered that the special prosecutor nominated by the Senate to investigate the affair be fired, leading several Justice Department officials to resign in protest, in what came to be known as the Saturday Night Massacre.

But the political drama, which led to impeachment proceedings against President Nixon and eventually to his resignation, was somewhat overshadowed that month by one of the major international crises of the 20th Century - the 1973 Middle East War, aka the Yom Kippur War.