A Long Way To Lasting Peace

Israel and the United States have reversed the nuclear clock in Iran, or if one looks at it the other way it has been pushed into overdrive. The 12 day war started by Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and intensified by US President Donald Trump with his stealth bomber attacks on Iran’s three nuclear sites has achieved little else but death and destruction, and ensured the nuclearisation of Iran that had been using its nuclear program for peaceful options for the past 20 years or more.

The strikes did not succeed in pulverising Iran’s nuclear program with the assets shifted and saved before the attack. This has been accepted now by the world. However, given the fact that Iran was in talks with the US just before Netanyahu’s attack the bombing has broken the back of any such initiative. Iran has since declared its anger with Washington coupled with total distrust, and is unlikely to go back to the nuclear negotiating table in the foreseeable future. An agreement that could have been in the offing has thus been crippled by two leaders that sections of the world have labelled ‘mad’ - Trump and Netanyahu. Iran could now embrace the nuclear option, with Russia having made clear after the US bombing of the nuclear sites, that there were many countries willing to supply Tehran with their nuclear weapons. A major statement that holds the possibility of the nuclearisation of Iran.

Trump who likes to see himself as a peacemaker, despite his full support for Israel in the genocide of the Palestinians, and the war on Iran as well as the continuous attacks on the West Bank, Syria, Lebanon to name just some of the countries, seems to have gone down several notches yet again. He opened a war that the Americans did not want, as the large protests across the United States have more than indicated. He came through as a befuddled, dithering, vacilatting man with a ‘yes I won’t’ turning into a sudden ‘yes I will’ as he ordered the bombing. And then turning within days into a ceasefire announcement, after threats that Iran would be finished. A leader torn between the Zionists and the saner voices in his own administration, and moving between the two like an uncontrolled yo yo.

This US President is taking his country down the hill, with a rapidity that he and perhaps some of his supporters mistake as decision making. His war on Iran divided his own base dramatically, and placed him on the outside of his own Administration. More so as even those against Iran recognised the fact that one, by joining Netanyahu’s war Trump had brought in the threat of World War 3; and two, he had robbed the US of the leverage that some of the earlier administrations and Presidents had worked hard to protect insofar as the Middle East, and particularly Iran was concerned.

World War 3 as the world knows, even if these two men don’t, that Russia and China will not allow Iran to go the way of Iraq and Syria. That it is a frontline state for them, in terms of energy of course, but also as a major anchor in their strategic and economic plans for expansion. The war on Iran was also to test their mettle, as if any backing off or hesitation would make both Moscow and Beijing lose their authority, respect and trust in the world. The two nations have remained very closely involved in the Israel-Iran war, with the visit by the Iran Foreign Minister to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin a major step towards the ceasefire announced shortly after by Trump.

The foreign policy pursued by both Russia and China is quiet and nuanced; with more indicated and little said. Analysts and journalists used to the bombastic statements emerging from the White House often miss the signals such as inherent in the Putin-Iran FM meeting. The statements from both Moscow and Beijing had become stronger by the day, with both capitals making it very apparent that they were not going to accept US involvement in the Iran war.

Netanyahu has had no option but to support the ceasefire announced by Trump. He cannot continue the war with Iran on his own and that is the reason why his government had been virtually begging Trump to join. The Israelis are not used to body bags; and while cheering their government for killing babies and women across the borders cannot bear a role reversal. The Iranian missiles have had the Israelis running into bunkers, fighting with each other for space, running terrified, weeping into cameras, and fleeing the country. The support for Khameini and the government in Iran has multiplied in these 12 days, whereas the support for Netanyahu and his men has dwindled considerably within Israel. So far Netanyahu had been earning eyeballs and accolades for bombing and destroying weaponless countries, and starving women and children in Gaza.

The inhumanity and the violation of all laws and rights that is on display in Gaza continues – as Netanyahu’s missiles and bombs continue to target the Palestinians in the most barbaric fashion as his mentors in Washington watch. And Trump talks of a riviera in Gaza and says to reporters “we have Gaza.” Ironically many of the countries that criticised Israel for its targeting of hospitals, schools, and children in Gaza jumped to support and defend it for the attack on Iran. They all – Germany. UK, France, Jordan, Saudi Arabia et al — supported Netanyahu, some verbally, many militarily. And pretended to believe the reason for the attack –that is to take out the nuclear program. This despite the fact that the Iranians have not developed nuclear weapons, joined talks, and indeed were sitting at that moment itself with the Americans for a possible agreement!

The reasons given for wars and invasions and regime changes are usually fraudulent. The US invasion of Iraq was justified on the basis of the non existent weapons of mass destruction; of Syria on the basis of terrorism whereas the Salafists and others who were armed and weaponise to fight against the Assad regime were really the remnants of terrorist movements in the region; and now the attack on Iran for supposedly its nuclear program whereas it does not have nuclear weapons and the attacker, namely Israel, is sitting on nuclear warheads that have been supplied to it in plenty. Hence the Russian warning that there were many countries who were ready to supply Iran with the same.

There will be no peace in the region, and indeed the world, until there is peace in Palestine. This is the crux and these small leaders of big nations will have to listen to the Global South and their own masses, sit down and work out a solution that rests in a free, independent, sovereign state of Palestine.