Editorial

The whole world breathed easy last Tuesday as Iran and the USA reached a temporary ceasefire at the 11th hour through the active mediation of Pakistan – clearly at the behest of the USA and China.

US President Donald Trump was quick to go to his social media to declare ‘complete’ victory from his near 40-day-long effort, which was to have been a 4-day-long ‘excursion’ into Iran.

After tens of hundreds of Iranian deaths, including of its top political and military leadership; the destruction of billions of dollars of infrastructure – civilian, military and economic; and a global economic and energy upheaval impacting the lives of millions of people, what way forward can there possibly be for the US and Iran? Will there be a global ‘reboot’ in Islamabad this weekend?

Despite the threats of civilisational annihilation and sustained attacks by two leading military powers and nuclear weapon states (one de facto), Iran was more restrained in declaring victory. It had only not to lose, to win. Whatever regime change the US/Israel may have had in mind at the outset of the war, this weekend it is back to negotiating with the same regime, by most accounts more firmly entrenched than before given the public outrage at the civilian deaths and destroyed infrastructure.

The tenacity to take the hits and the planning to take the war to the wider region and then the rest of the world gave the Iranian leaders new status in the global scheme of things and a seat at the table to talk directly with the most powerful military power in the world.

Pakistan, by all accounts, fronted by China and the USA, played an important part in bringing a framework to the table – the 15-point US proposal, the 5-point China/Pakistan framework and now the 10-point Iranian proposal. Although not all the details have been officially revealed, some of the recurring and outstanding bullet points include limiting Iran’s missile and nuclear programmes, lifting of sanctions, termination of UNSC resolutions, ceasing support to Iranian proxies, withdrawal of US combat forces from the region, and security guarantees for a permanent end to the hostilities against Iran.

The new geo-economic weapon in Iran’s arsenal and arguably Iran’s ‘Trump’ card in the negotiations is its new-found control over the Strait of Hormuz. The US President’s expletive-driven post demanding Iran open the Strait was a classic showcasing of his distress. It appears that the present pause in the fighting was not brought about by a military calculation alone but by simple geography – the Strait being a vital maritime artery through Iran’s territorial sea through which the global economy sails, transporting food, energy and multiple essential components of global supply chains.

Iran’s nuclear programme is back on the table again after decades of ups and downs and only several months after President Trump’s claim that it had been destroyed. No amount of independent verification by the international watchdog, the IAEA, seems to allay Israel’s fears of a nuclear-armed Iran – a threshold it knows, if crossed, will change all strategic calculations in West Asia. Some fear that an Iranian Shia bomb risks proliferation beyond the existing Sunni bomb (Pakistan) to Saudi Arabia.

President Trump’s 15-point plan includes not only physically removing the stockpiles of enriched uranium in Iran (essential fuel for a nuclear weapon) but also a permanent end to what Iran calls its sovereign right – its ability and technological infrastructure to enrich uranium, the latter condition consistently rejected by Iran.

Even if the world settles into business as usual at some post-Trump point in the future, sovereign states will no doubt draw lessons from what transpired: the unpredictable exercise of national interest and power; the fragility of protection provided by values embedded in international law and institutions; the risks of global interdependence; and the need for strategic diversification because interests may diverge even among the closest of allies, such as the NATO countries and those protected by the nuclear umbrella, such as Japan and South Korea.

The United Nations itself was reduced to a mere spectator in this entire war. Resolutions were passed in New York (UN Security Council), Geneva (Human Rights Council) and London (International Maritime Organisation), and not one condemned the violation of the UN Charter and international law by the US/Israeli aggression. Leaders of the Global South took cover behind labels of neutrality and non-alignment.

Iran is not without its faults. As a nation-state, it has thrown away its ancient heritage as a land of cultural and religious tolerance, of music and architecture, and a land famous for its textiles and weaving, a long tradition of trade and cultural exchanges – much of which has been sacrificed at the altar of a theological state ruled by the iron fist of a military-backed regime.

Then, what is the USA today? Is it any different? Its foreign minister went to Munich only two months ago and spoke of a ‘common Christian heritage’ between a ‘white’ America and a ‘white’ Europe; its war minister compared the recovery of a downed US fighter pilot during the Good Friday-Easter Sunday period to the resurrection of Christ; and its President said he will bomb an ‘entire (Islamic) civilisation’ to the Stone Age ‘where they belong’, making a sarcastic remark to the Islamic God. What is the difference, and why is it that this war is a ‘clash of civilisations’?

The world at large will still hope that the talks in Islamabad will reach a favourable conclusion and clear, to a great extent, the toxic environment that exploded early last month in open warfare. The longstanding two-state solution for Palestine has gone, once again, to the back burner, the limbo of forgotten things. And West Asia will forever be on the boil from the frying pan to the fire and back to the frying pan until a lasting solution is found for that root cause of all the trouble in the region.

The conflict also showed, to the rest of the world experiencing it firsthand (despite all the COP summits on climate change and renewable energy), that the world cannot live without the fossil fuels of oil and gas coming from below the deserts of the westernmost parts of Asia.

Until the USA, China or Europe cuts across an alternate route to the Strait of Hormuz – a new Suez Canal in the desert – Iran will remain a key player with newfound power in international affairs.