By Uzma Ehtasham
The guns have fallen silent, for now. After two days of intense aerial and missile exchanges between the United States and Iran, following discussions at foreign ministerial level, a temporary ceasefire has taken hold. According to international news agencies, diplomatic efforts by Pakistan, Qatar and Oman have succeeded in de-escalating tensions in the Middle East, reviving fragile hopes for the resumption of US-Iran nuclear negotiations. Sources familiar with these diplomatic initiatives indicate that the mediating nations are pressing both parties to refrain from further attacks and return to the negotiating table over contentious issues, particularly shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, sanctions relief, and broader security arrangements.
Yet even as mediators labor to prevent the region from sliding into open warfare, the American president has delivered a torrent of vituperation that makes one wonder which side genuinely desires peace. Donald Trump has declared that Barack Obama negotiated “the worst deal in history” with Iran, insisted he does not wish to negotiate with Iranians, dismissed current negotiators as wasting their time, and threatened to target Iranian bridges, water filtration plants and infrastructure. He has described Iranians as “liars, deceivers, murderers and mentally ill”, boasted of destroying 28 Iranian boats, and hinted at future ambitions to seize control of Kharg Island.
He has expressed scepticism that any agreement with Iran would prove durable, characterized Iranian leadership as “cancer” that had been “cut out”, and asserted that Iran could be prevented from acquiring nuclear weapons even without a deal. His parting shot was that Iran would no longer be able to “bother anyone” in the Middle East. One reads such statements and cannot help but reflect on the psychological projection at play. A man who has changed his position at least three hundred times in the past three months – a statistic that strains credulity but feels lamentably plausible – sees fit to diagnose the mental fitness of others.
This is the same individual who dances to the tune of Zionist interests, which in this region have long been a festering sore, and who has placed the peace and economy of the entire world at risk through his reckless rhetoric and actions. The Iranian leadership has repeatedly insisted that America cannot be trusted, and it is difficult to argue with that assessment when the American president himself boasts of reneging on commitments and threatens acts that would constitute war crimes under any reasonable interpretation of international law.
Nor is this simply a matter of one man’s erratic temperament. America’s allies appear equally possessed by a fanatical hostility to peace, indifferent to the consequences of their aggression. The recent statement by NATO chief General Mark Rutte that new American strikes on Iran were “very necessary” exemplifies this alarming consensus. One must ask: necessary for whom? Necessary to achieve what? The destruction of yet another Middle Eastern nation? The creation of yet another failed state whose chaos will breed terrorism for generations? The strategic bankruptcy of this approach is so evident that only ideological blindness could obscure it.
On the other side of the ledger, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have claimed attacks on 85 American military targets in Bahrain and Kuwait, striking US bases with missiles and drones. Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf has reiterated that America violated multiple significant commitments, reimposed sanctions on Iranian oil, and carried out attacks – while affirming Iran’s determination to protect its national interests and declaring that the era of “bullying and extortion” is over. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s advisor, Mohsen Rezaei, has warned that America will lead negotiations toward failure, and that US efforts to secure alternative routes to the Strait of Hormuz will sabotage diplomatic progress.
In this precarious moment, Pakistan, China and Qatar have jointly appealed to both parties to adhere to the Islamabad reconciliatory memorandum and spare the region further devastation. The question that must be posed to the international community is whether it will confine itself to issuing statements while the world burns, or whether it will finally take practical action. Will the United Nations Security Council, so often paralyzed by the very powers that should be restraining one another, summon the courage to intervene meaningfully? Will the European powers, whose economies are so intimately tied to the stability of the Gulf, exert the leverage they possess over their American ally?
The stakes could scarcely be higher. If tensions between America and Iran escalate further, it will not only be the Middle East that suffers. The global economy stands to be severely affected: energy prices would spike, international trade would be disrupted, and the potential intervention of other major powers – Russia and China most prominently – could transform a regional conflict into a conflagration whose dimensions might fairly be described as the prelude to a third world war. This is not hyperbole; it is a sober assessment of the strategic realities that confront us.
What is most dispiriting about the current situation is its avoidability. The Iran nuclear deal, for all its imperfections, was a meticulously negotiated arrangement that enjoyed the support of virtually every major power and that was, by all independent assessments, succeeding in its primary objective of constraining Iran’s nuclear program. The decision to abandon it was an act of wanton diplomatic destruction that served no constructive purpose other than to gratify the ideological prejudices of those who mistake belligerence for strength. The ensuing campaign of “maximum pressure” has not compelled Iranian capitulation; it has strengthened the hands of Iranian hardliners, impoverished the Iranian people, and brought the region to the brink of war. This is failure by any meaningful measure.
(The writer is a public health professional, journalist, and possesses expertise in health communication, having keen interest in national and international affairs, can be reached at uzma@metro-morning.com)
