Iran has made its position known to the world with a warning that is clear as a bell. Attack and be prepared for whatever follows, and it is not going to be nice. It is not going to be like before, when Teheran and its mullahs and major-generals were caught sleeping and unprepared.
This time things will be different, and in the worst way that can be expected. Is that a hollow bluff from the besieged and humiliated oil power in the always one step away from a conflagration Middle East? Or, is it that Iranian political and military leaders have had enough of Tel Aviv and Washington, enough of Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump, and is itself committed to a fight to the death?
President Trump is almost as determined to teach the Iranians a lesson, by bringing down their leaders, who have caused the US and its allies so much trouble. He has been a radically different type of US president, one that gives short thrift to the conventions of international law, and nation-to-nation relations.
This is expressed in the way that he manages hostile adversaries, how he proceeds to bring them to heel, while violating all standing norms that have long existed among sovereign nations. He has done it to Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro, without a moment of remorse, and looks like he is not pulling back, but bent on extending that reckless and dangerous approach to settling differences, or fulfilling his own twisted ambitions.
Mexico and Canada, US neighbours, have felt the edge of his wrath, his impatience with how they govern, how the US pays a price, and with that he has made his position clear. From illegal drugs to illegal migration to tariffs and refusing to yield, all have been representations of Trump’s furies and his readiness to level the scales to the favor of the US. Greenland is another apple that has caught his eye, and moves are afoot by his people to introduce some degree of change there with the US in the driver’s seat. This is causing serious fallout in Europe and even threatening to fracture the 80-year-old NATO defense bloc. Still, Trump is barreling forward, with verbal guns blazing and making his intentions obvious. The US must be dominant, dictate to other countries how the program will be, and what is his expectations on the limited or circumscribed roles that they would have.
It is this same vein of thinking, and this approach, that is directed at Iran, and which has pushed its leaders to stand in defiant resistance. The Iranians are also shaking their fists in the face of Trump, and rattling their own sabers. If a conflict is what is in mind, is behind all the hostile rhetoric, then be ready for the worst that can be imagined, the law of unintended consequences. A regional conflict said one of the leading ayatollahs, which could have several meanings, but one that is not so veiled. Since the US may be out of direct Iranian retaliation, then the remainder of the incendiary Middle East is open to the spread of war, by whatever means it comes.
Without a doubt, a prime first target of any Iranian response to an attack on it would be on Israel, its archenemy and archnemesis. What happens then, which other countries get sucked in at that point? What do the Iranians do to the strategic Straits of Hormuz, through which so much vital oil flows? Who will ally with the US, who would be so bold as to stand with Iran, and risk incurring the unpredictable malice and viciousness of the US president? Trump is a president who believes he has all the answers, can solve any problem.
We think that he is wrong, goes about contentious matters in ways that leave irreparable damage. The world is not subservient to his whims, at his beck and call, when he breaks the rules of engagement in what is clearly a haphazard fashion. Conflict is not deal-making, but about devastation and death. Stirring up hornet’s nests is taking risky gambles that could backfire in unexpected ways. Iran has taken its stand: attack and be prepared for untold consequences.
