BEFORE DONALD TRUMP BUMBLES THE WORLD INTO A MESSY AND UNNECESSARY WAR. By Dr Uche Diala
The United States President Donald Trump stated yesterday that he pulled the plug on plannned US strikes on Iranian targets in retaliation for Iran’s downing of an unmanned Drone reportedly ’10 minutes’ away, after he learnt the strike would cost 150,000 Iranian lives.
Some people believed that and are even praising him for being humane and all that. Some actually said he saved the world from a war? Really? A war that he is inadvertently provoking either deliberately or ignorantly. Never mind that the actual reality is that one of the first information that is put before the Commander in Chief in contemplating any war or military strike is the proportionality of the response, potential casualty count and possible consequences. How plausible then is that the American President did not have this full information before the Forces were prepped, guns loaded and ready to pull the trigger? That remains to be proven but this notion that America and its Military are the bad guys while Trump plays the good guy is erroneous and deceptive.
Beyond that, let me remind everyone that the current tension and stand off with Iran with the accompanying dangerous situation in the Strait of Hormuz was directly triggered by the United States nay Trump unilaterally pulling America out of the Iran Nuclear Deal or JCPA signed on July 2015 in Vienna Austria spearheaded by President Barrack Obama and other world leaders. A deal which the world painstakingly put together and which the World, including the UN acknowleged that Iran was keeping to. Trump pulled out of that deal simply because he vowed to roll back every achievement made by Barrack Obama without thinking of the consequences.
It was good that President Trump called off those strikes but I think more than that, he should re-calibrate and re-evalute his stance and understanding of how the world works. The world is so complex that the only way to make it work for everyone and maintain some level of peace and stability is cooperation amongst nations. That was the wisdom behind the formation of the United Nations. No nation in the world can really function or survive alone no matter how rich or powerful.
Iran on its part has not been a responsible global actor historically and it has a lot of bad influence especially around the Middle East but in this particular case of the Iran Nuclear deal, America appears to be agent provocateur as the world acknowledges that Iran had verifiably kept to the deal. The fact that the West has sided with Iran and not the US in this respect tells the entire story.
It must be pointed out clearly that a military conflict between Iran and the United States will have worldwide impact both militarily and economically that would be felt by nations far removed from and uninvolved in the conflict, including Nigeria which depends heavily on crude oil. With Iran proxies scattered all over the Middle East; Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, Houthis in Yemen, Iran-backed Shiite militias in Iraq and Syria as well as the Taliban in Afghanistan, a conflagration of global and historic proportions is brewing if reason does not prevail.
Some have spoken about the Military superiority of America over Iran. While that is very correct, a war with Iran would be messy and anything but conventional. With these proxies fully engaged in the war, with Houtis engaged with Saudi Arabia, Hezbollah and Hamas with Isreal and other theatres opened around the Middle East targeting American assets and personal across the region, the potential of thousands of missiles flying across the region and beyond and maybe even nuclear weapons with attendant collateral damage, the prospect is very real and scary. This happening at a time America in itself is deeply divided, the world fragmented and the UN weakened, all of which are largely traceable to the unstable and disruptive style of Trump’s leadership would be no tea party.
The instant global economic impact of such a conflict, starting with disruptions of oil production and supplies (because international oil transport routes would be closed) would unwittingly draw the world into such a conflagration. While the US may be territorially removed from the theatre of war and have billions of barrels of crude oil in reserve, the rest of the world is not that lucky.
I wish President Trump would have a rethink and return to the Iran Nuclear deal. Any misgivings he has about the deal could be addressed on a multi-lateral platform. That is a more reasonable and sustainable path to follow than this policy of “maximum pressure” on Iran. There’s no way the politicians in Iran would roll over simply because of the pressure because they have their own complex political environment to contend with. I actually feel that Trump is not a good student of history and world politics. Because if he were, he would have realised that the Iranian President Hassan Rouhani who is one of the moderate voices in Iran had to navigate a fine line while negotiating that Iran deal because any failure to somehow appease or at least carry the hardliners in Tehran along would alienate him, make a deal impossible and strengthen their hands. That was clearly understood by Barrack Obama. Sadly Trump’s actions seem to be strengthening those hardliners and giving the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) which answers directly to the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei an excuse to misbehave.
The West should ramp up its effort in finding a way to circumvent the Dollar and give Iran some leeway to alleviate the economic pressure and sanctions while working with the UN to de-escalate tensions and find a more enduring solution. Otherwise the world would be faced with a monumental crises. It is not an US-Iran problem. It is a brewing global crises that the world can ill afford now and everyone should be concerned.