After being at each other’s throats for about two weeks, the gunfire and missiles are supposedly falling silent in the Middle East with Iran and Israel agreeing to a ceasefire, the terms of which are still under wraps at the time of writing. And the best part of this ceasefire was that it was not announced in Tel Aviv or Tehran but came through from President Donald Trump, first through his social media posts. And that is the interesting part of war and diplomacy: two nations fight and a third announces the ceasefire.
In fact, a lot of credit for the turn of events is being given to Qatar which is said to have leaned on Iran. The small Gulf state has been increasingly playing a prominent role in difficult situations, as for instance in brokering the hostages’ issue between Israel and Hamas. But Qatar had a price to pay as well in the process: it had to shut down its airspace following Iranian barrage against an American air base. And that shutdown affected thousands of travelers especially those travelling or transiting through Qatar, Abu Dhabi and the United Arab Emirates and perhaps even Bahrain.
But not all of this was sudden or unexpected for President Trump who thanked the Iranians for the advance notice that saved lives. After the supposed flattening of Iranian nuclear sites, including at Fordow, Qatar and the rest of the Middle East were expecting this from Tehran. At times retaliations are token and advance notices are given not just to save lives but at times to move assets as well.
After all, for all that propaganda noise of B2s, bunker busters and tomahawks, it would have been naïve to expect the Iranian regime to just gather a crowd in downtown Tehran and burn American and Israeli national flags. To show resolve and maintain credibility Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had to do something, even in a token show of resistance.
That brings back the question of American “obliteration” of three nuclear sites including at Isfahan, Natanz, and Fordow. There are conflicting versions on what exactly had been achieved through the six 30,000 pound bunker busters and some 60 Tomahawk cruise missiles. One version is that the damage could be minimal given that Iran would have taken care to move its centrifuges to a safer location. The presence of trucks at the shafts of Fordow, experts believe, is for one of two reasons: the hundreds of centrifuges had been moved out; or the heavy payload at the entrance was to take the sting away and provide a cushion from the massive ordnances. Or were the Iranians tipped off?
So, what is it that the Trump administration achieve by inserting the United States into a war between Israel and Iran? It came at a time when American and Iranian negotiators were getting ready for the sixth round of talks; and perhaps one way of letting Tehran know that Washington still had the wherewithal to get involved thousands of miles without boots on the ground.
And the fact that Iran walked away with an unaccounted 400 kgs of enriched uranium keeps the diplomatic door open for further talks. And as far as Israel is concerned a message that it can hit all the nuclear sites it wants or physically eliminate any number of scientists, it may be very difficult to make a permanent dent in the learning process.
In the midst of all the vagaries and oddities of war and diplomacy, critics of President Trump have not failed to touch upon his obsession with winning the Nobel Peace Prize and that a lasting peace between Iran and Israel could just be the last box to be checked off in the long list of proclaimed achievements in Asia, Africa and elsewhere.
President Trump’s lament has been that had his name been Obama, he could have wrapped up the Nobel in about ten seconds. President Barack Obama won the coveted prize in 2009 barely months after entering the Oval Office, an announcement that raised many an eyebrow at that time. Or as John Bolton, President Trump’s former National Security Advisor, put it: “The center of his public life is the greater glory of Donald Trump, and the Nobel Peace Prize would be a nice thing to hang on the wall… He saw that Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize and felt if Obama got it for not doing anything, why should he not get it?”
But war, peace, and diplomacy go beyond hanging a plaque on the wall.
Disclaimer: The opinions and views expressed in this article/column are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of South Asian Herald.
