The Middle East has been on tenterhooks since Friday when a United States drone killed an Iranian general, Qasem Soleimani, near the Baghdad airport in Iraq. It was a well-orchestrated strike which President Donald Trump applauded, given the notoriety of the victim in the prism of the US and some of its allies. The late general was not the only casualty; the leader of Kataib Hezbollah, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, was also killed along with six others.
Since then, world leaders have responded frenetically to the development with rhetoric, vacillating between condemnation and approval. Russia said the attack was a “murder and reckless step.” A Kremlin statement said President Vladimir Putin had discussed the attack with his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, and they resolved that “this action might seriously escalate tensions in the region.”
But the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom supported the Trump offensive. The UK, he affirmed, “will not lament” Soleimani’s death, but he called for calm and de-escalation of the crisis. His support for Trump is shared by the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu. Both leaders had cut short their foreign trips to return to their respective countries for emergency security council meetings as apprehension enveloped the international system in the wake of the attack. The UK has issued a travel advisory to its citizens against Iran and Iraq, requesting them to always be abreast of developments there, while the US has done so too for its nationals living in Nigeria.
According to Trump, the US action was a pre-emptive one rather than an all-out war with Iran. He accused Soleimani of being directly or indirectly responsible for the death of millions of people in the region, many of them Americans. Pentagon, in justifying the ghastly incident, accused Soleimani of “developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region.” Soleimani commanded Iran’s dreaded Quds Force and allegedly coordinated a network of militias in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen. Their stock in trade is terrorism. But his murder raises more problems than it intended to solve. In the US, especially among some Congressional leaders, doubt exists about the integrity of the intelligence that Trump was purported to have acted on. For this reason, Rep Adam Schiff, a Democrat from California, says Americans should see the evidence.
Iran and Hezbollah’s response to America’s belligerent posture is captured in one word: revenge. Soleimani was Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s second in command. The country’s President, Hassan Rouhani, said, “Iran and other free nations of the region will take revenge for this gruesome crime…” Amid this climate of uncertainty, NATO met on Monday, while the United Nations sued for peace across the Gulf region.
The whole drama is portentous. Iraq, on whose soil the killing took place, is aggrieved and as rattled as Iran. The action is a violation of its sovereignty and a brazen breach of international law. No nation, no matter how small, would tolerate such indignity. After leading a coalition force that routed ISIS, the US continues to maintain its military presence there, which it now takes an undue advantage of. As a result, the Iraqi authorities want all foreign forces to withdraw from its land.
But Trump is adamant. He has threatened to impose a raft of harsh sanctions on Iraq, the type that it had not experienced before, if it insists on having its way. However, if the US troops should leave, Trump has demanded the payment of about $6 billion that the US used to build its military fortress there.
It will be scary if this happens: ISIS will regroup to reclaim its lost territories in no time; and an evicted US will signpost an irreversible escalation of the crisis. True to their sabre-rattling, rockets have been landing near the US military bases, where the coalition forces stay. More of such are underway with Iran and Hezbollah promising to target the US military infrastructure wherever they could be found. Undoubtedly, the lives of members of the coalition forces will be imperilled.
Therefore, the US is not taking any chances at all. On Monday, its military announced strategic movement of troops within Iraq. As of the end of 2019, the US alone had 5,200 troops in Iraq, in a security pact with its host to advise and support the Iraqi military against ISIS. Trump has vowed to target 52 of Iran’s high level sites, if it dared to retaliate Soleimani’s killing. To legitimise the earlier strike and prepare for any eventuality, the White House has notified the Congress of Soleimani’s killing under the War Powers Act.
A time like this demands statesmanship, not brinksmanship, from world leaders. The allies of the US, therefore, should prevail on Trump to demonstrate maturity and restraint in throwing the country’s weight around. Since his presidency began, he has been utterly reckless, thus rupturing the international order. Russia, China and others close to Iran, too, should work on its temperament.
Truce is critical now. It is not only the Middle East that is in danger with what is unravelling, but the entire world. The region’s peculiar geo-political and religious dynamics, as a haven for global terrorism and the largest producer of the crude oil that powers the global economy, make the unfolding disquiet more petrifying for all. Far away as Nigeria is from the theatre of this discord, the Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, has put state police commands on red alert. While extremists should be dealt with professionally, adequate security measures should also be put in place to keep the country safe.
Obviously, stability in the Middle East is anything but guaranteed, with Iran’s decision to end its commitment to the 2015 nuclear deal that provided cuts in its centrifuges by two-thirds; limited her uranium enrichment at 3.7 per cent and stockpiling to only 300 kilogrammes for 15 years. In return, its $150 billion frozen assets will be returned and oil sanctions lifted. That was a package widely expected to tempt Iraq out of the loop of rogue regimes and join the league of responsible actors in the international space.
Now, her return to the status quo ante is certainly good news to militia groups like Hezbollah and Hamas that draw their firepower from Iran’s missiles supply. They act as Iran’s proxies in any conflict it decides to play the card of insularity. Israel knows no peace as a result of their unguarded missiles attacks, leading to her overkill, reprisals sometimes.
But the new eerie atmosphere in the region would not have arisen in the first place, had Trump not discredited the Iran nuclear deal. In 2018, he said the US would not honour it anymore, describing it as “worst, horrible, (and) laughable.” It was his rabid effort to wipe out all of President Barack Obama’s legacies that has pushed the Middle East to this precipice. Obama had advised critics of the deal to have faith in the efficacy of diplomacy to resolve all the grey issues; but warned that “pulling out now would risk another military conflict in the Middle East.” The actors seem to be gravitating inexorably towards that crossroads. However, the UN and all lovers of global peace should act concertedly and swiftly too to avert this imminent tragedy at all costs.
