The sneak attack launched penultimate Saturday against Iran, after a spell of saber-rattling, killing its Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, many members of his household and dozens of Iranian officials, marked the limit of hubris that has shaped the presidency of Donald Trump of the United States of America and the tenure of his ally, Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
The unprecedented “decapitation” of the Islamic Republic’s leadership and the torrential rain of strikes that have followed speak volumes about the two leaders’ bohemian, mercurial and eccentric tendencies since taking power.
The precipitous US-Israeli joint strikes, which have killed over 1,000 people, including more than 150 schoolchildren in Iran, have fundamentally upended Iran’s power structure and plunged the Middle East into another round of volatility.
The attacks have abruptly sundered Khamenei’s over 36 years of despotic rule. His killing has left a big power vacuum in Tehran. With the late Iranian leader’s extremely antagonistic stance towards the US and the West, his death has raised hope for a more moderate or reformist Supreme Leader to succeed him. But the pool of replacement candidates has become significantly smaller since the US has killed some of his preferred successors.
This conflict marks a shift from a “shadow war” to direct, high-stakes confrontation, triggering a wave of Iranian retaliatory attacks across the region, hitting Israel, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia in initial attacks penultimate weekend.
Six US service members were killed in one of those retaliatory strikes on a US operations center in Kuwait, marking the first reported American combat deaths in this war. More than a dozen other soldiers were reportedly wounded in Iranian attacks.
The strikes are being viewed across the world largely with incredulity, what with the conflicting, desultory and largely factitious explanations American and Israeli officials gave for hitting Iran.
Immediately after the launch of what Trump called “Operation Epic Fury” on February 28, the US strong man framed the attack as defensive and suggested that it was intended to eliminate “imminent threats” from Iran.
Israel, in its own case, described it as a “preemptive strike” aimed at neutralizing an anticipated missile attack from Iran. White House Press Secretary, Karoline Leavitt, also told reporters on March 4 that Trump had a “good feeling” that Iran was planning to attack the US. But neither the US nor Israel provided any evidence that Iran was planning to attack them.
As a matter of fact, in private briefings to Congress, Trump administration officials acknowledged that US intelligence did not show Iran was preparing to strike before being hit by US-Israeli joint strikes.
Instead, they said Iran’s missiles and proxy forces posed a threat to US personnel and allies in the region, although officials presented differing views over whether that threat was more general or imminent.
The rationale behind the strikes continued evolving days after the strikes. US officials had described the offensive as aimed at crippling Iran’s ballistic missile infrastructure and preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon after what the Trump administration has since said were failed nuclear negotiations.
Israeli leader, Netanyahu, has repeatedly described the Iranian regime as an “existential threat” to Israel. But Iran has maintained that it is not looking to develop a nuclear weapon, although the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog said Tehran had enriched uranium beyond civilian energy needs.
Even so, the watchdog said that Iran did not have a structured programme towards developing a nuclear weapon. After bombing three Iranian nuclear facilities last June, Trump also claimed that the US had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear programme.
The “decapitating” attacks were launched while American and Iranian officials were still participating in Omani-mediated talks aimed at preventing further escalation between the two nations.
The mediation had raised cautious hopes of de-escalating long-running hostility between them. Those nuclear negotiation talks had resumed in early February after being stalled since June, when Israel attacked Iran and the US joined Israel in strikes on Iranian nuclear sites.
There were reports of limited but notable progress between US and Iranian negotiators, who met in Oman on February 6 and Geneva on February 26 and 27, just a day before the US-Israeli strikes.
So, the largely mendacious explanations offered by US and Israel did little to convince world leaders about the genuineness of the attacks. The sophistry in the inconsistent claims is discernible. The joint strikes are viewed in many diplomatic circles as a perfunctory gamble by Trump to coddle a major ally, Israel’s Netanyahu, who had mounted pressure on the US for the joint strikes partly to avenge Iran’s volley of audacious retaliatory strikes during the 12-day war between Iran and Israel last June.
The hypocrisy of Trump and Netanyahu in the way they were heckling Iran over its perceived nuclear agenda stinks to high heavens. No doubt, both have a mortal dread about the possibility of Iran adding nuclear power to its arsenal, believing that nukes in the hands of a ruthless leader like Khamenei posed great danger to global peace.
True, nukes are no toys and the less nations that possess them the better for global order. Yet, in the course of Oman’s mediated talks between Iran and US on the former’s nuclear programme, Tehran was said to have made great concessions, having agreed to zero stockpiling of enriched uranium.
Iranian officials were said to have agreed to down-blend existing stockpiles to the lowest possible level. They further conceded to convert them into irreversible fuel and to allow full IAEA verification with potential US inspector access. They agreed to “never, ever” possess nuclear material for a bomb.
Whereas, as US and Israel continue to rain missiles on Iran in the ongoing strikes, they are among the ‘big league’ of nine countries that have nukes tucked away in their ‘closets.’ In fact, of the 12,119 nukes in the world today, US is said to possess 3,700, while Russia has 4,309; China, 600; France, 290; and UK, 225. India is said to have 180; Pakistan, 170; Israel, 90 and North Korea, 50.
Now, quite unfortunately, the ongoing attacks have once again hardened Iran’s stance towards the US and shattered hopes for a diplomatic agreement around Iran’s nuclear programme.
The war is stirring a global tailspin. It has caused widespread travel disruptions. While Americans have been advised to leave the Middle East immediately, doing so is an uphill task: several Gulf nations closed their airspaces, and some international airports in the Gulf, many of which serve as key transit points for global travel, also sustained damage from Iran’s counteroffensives, leaving hundreds of thousands of travelers stranded.
The Federal Government is just finalizing arrangements to evacuate over 1,000 Nigerians that are stranded as a result of the conflict. Even then, flying around the theatres of war in the Middle East now has become risky. A viral video last week showed passengers in a plane caught in hysterical fright as a furious missile whizzed past them, narrowly missing the plane.
The war also threatens to disrupt global oil and gas supplies. There is already a bottleneck in the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow maritime passage between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman through which around a fifth of the world’s oil production passes. Iran, which controls the northern side of the strait and can block any traversing ships, has previously used the waterway as a political bargaining chip amid tensions.
Following the attack over the weekend, Iranian forces threatened that any ship passing through would be “set ablaze.” Several LNG facilities across the region were also attacked. Analysts said the threat of prolonged conflict has impelled shippers to either dock to avoid risks or to jack up costs, leading to price surges.
World leaders may have to wake up from lethargy at this stage and rally under a multilateral body like the United Nations to prevent the US/Israeli-Iranian war from escalating further. One of the dangerous worst-case scenarios spurred by the spiraling conflict is the possibility of upending the UN-led global bulwark against conflicts. It is a framework designed to prevent nations from intervening unilaterally in international conflicts among nations.
Since the end of the Second World War, international conflicts have been addressed collectively through the UN Security Council. However, over the years, some big powers have begun to violate this principle.
During the Cold War and beyond, global superpowers like the US and Russia have often pursued methods that serve their national interests for regime change or geopolitical balances of power.
The growing trend of unilateral interventions in sovereign nations by the superpowers severely erodes the aspiration of collective security founded in the UN system. It also sets a dangerous precedence that larger powers can usurp smaller ones should they chose to do so.
Russia, for example, unilaterally invaded Ukraine since 2021; while Saudi Arabia intervened in Yemen and Bahrain; Turkey in Syria, Iraq and Libya; and the UAE in Libya and Yemen.
The US-Israeli joint airstrikes are believed to have violated international law. The strikes penetrated deep into Iranian territory, breaching Iran’s sovereignty under Article 2(4) of the UN charter.
The UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres should go beyond calling for cessation of military hostilities and rally world leaders to invoke the relevant charters dealing with this issue.
Already, Trump appears to be alone in this conflict. He has found himself prosecuting the Iranian war without the participation of its allies except Israel. Even the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) of which US is a strategic member, has said it would not be involved, although it backs the military campaign.
The US President has not hidden his frustrations with European leaders, many of whom have posited that the ongoing war is a breach of international law and declined to be involved. That view is also shared by other global players like China and Russia.
Back home, the legal basis for the US-Israeli strikes is a serious concern because the President’s authority to order military action is limited to repelling attacks or deterring a clearly imminent attack. And for him to launch an attack on a sovereign state, he is required to get authorization from Congress, which has the exclusive power to declare war. Military action without congressional approval is restricted by the 1973 War Powers Resolution, which limits the operation to 60 days.
Opinions on the war are sharply divided among American lawmakers along party lines. While the Republicans, members of Trump’s ruling party, support his action against Iran, the opposition democrats are vehemently opposed to it.
Across the board, 69% of Americans, according to a CBS News poll, said Trump needs to get authorization from Congress to continue military operations against Iran. A majority of those surveyed also felt the Trump administration had not provided a clear explanation for the US’s objectives in Iran.
Across American cities, including New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Chicago and Washington D.C., people have also taken to the streets to protest against airstrikes against the Islamic Republic. At the same time, thousands of others have rallied to celebrate the death of Khamenei, especially for the January massacre of Iranian protesters, and call for the end of the Iranian regime.
An emergency meeting of the UN Security Council should be convened without further delay to ramp up pressure on the warring parties to give mediation a chance at this stage. They (US, Israel and Iran) should by now have realized the futility of war and the fatuousness of hubris. Issues at stake should be laid on the table and thrashed out at the emergency session. The conflict should not be allowed to fester further.
The growing tendency for superpowers and other big powers to unilaterally intervene in the affairs of other sovereign nations should also be addressed at the session before any irascible war monger plunges the world into another avoidable conflict.
