In the morning, US President Trump gave a social media post in language that was inappropriate for the occasion. The post was that he would “eliminate (Iranian) civilisation” unless the clerical regime in Tehran opened the Strait of Hormuz by nightfall. The President got a dignified rap on the knuckles for the profane language used from no less a personage than Pope Leo, who termed the language used in the post as “Inappropriate”. By evening, there was another social media post from President Trump, telling the world that the US and (the clerical regime in) Iran had reached a deal and therefore he would pause US attacks on Iran by two weeks. Israel had no choice but to follow suit, albeit unwillingly. Khawaja Asif in Pakistan was quickly proved wrong when he said the pause extended to Lebanon. Soon after he made that statement, the Israeli Defense Forces attacked Hezbollah outposts in Lebanon. It must be said that if the US and Iran were to reach a mutually agreed solution to the crisis, it would meet with a welcome around the world. However, realists warn that the repeated attacks on Iran by Israel and the US have made the embrace of nuclear weapons by the IRGC all but inevitable. They had as a background the strutting posture of Chairman Kim in North Korea, who (correctly) said the nuclear weapons in his control made any attack on the DPRK impossible for fear of nuclear retaliation. Compare the safety from an attack of Kim to Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi, who were attacked within years of giving up their weapons of mass destruction (WMD). The US army attacked Iraq in force in 2003, claiming that Saddam had retained much of his WMD supplies. This was a falsehood. Had Saddam any WMD, he would not have been attacked by President George W. Bush. Thousands of soldiers from the US were brought in for the attack, and had the White House believed its own propaganda about Saddam having WMD, the war with Iraq would never have been started by the US. In the case of Gaddafi, he was persuaded to give up his limited stockpile of chemical weapons by the UK, on the promise of being left alone were he to comply. Instead of that, a storm of bombing was let loose against the forces of Gaddafi, and he himself was captured, cruelly tortured and assassinated by irregulars linked to elements in France and the UK. Unlike his father Ayatollah Khamenei or the predecessor of his father Ayatollah Khomeini, the present Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, has not forsworn nuclear weapons as “haram”. Were it to survive, the clerical regime in Iran would surely go onto the nuclear path earlier taken by North Korea and Pakistan.
There is a theory that much of the actions and social media posts of President Trump are linked to trades in global stock markets by family and friends of the White House. This may be inaccurate, but the truth remains that even the social media posts of President Trump move stock prices sharply. Already allegations have been made that friends of US Secretary of War Pete Hegsheth bought equity in companies manufacturing weapons a short while before the US joined Israel in attacking Iran. The allegations may be wrong, but almost certainly opponents of President Trump will demand an enquiry into such charges. Trading in oil futures has also been highlighted. Tensions with Iran caused prices to rise, and fall when the truce was announced. The actual reason may be more prosaic, which is that the war with Iran caused petrol prices to rise, angering US consumers, while the pause has led to a sharp decline in oil prices. Indeed, the losses caused by the 2 million US dollar cess to be levied by Oman and Iran on oil carrying vessels crossing the Strait of Hormuz would be more than made up. A reason why prices would fall is that the petro product producing countries in the Middle East know that a transition to clean, green energy is inevitable, made even more so by the Iran crisis. Rather than oil, what would count is production of microchips, especially now that Artificial Intelligence is proving ever easier to proliferate and use. Oil is what has ensured that (the clerical regime in) Iran had the money to fuel proxies such as Hezbollah. Lower prices would mean lower revenues for Iran, in a situation where huge amounts will need to be spent on reconstruction of destroyed infrastructure. China has given very many loans to Iran, to be repaid by Iran almost gifting much of its oil to the communist superpower. It will take a while before facilities in Iran will be able to reach the earlier level of ability to export.
Ultimately, the destiny of Iran rests with the people of that ancient country. The next time there is a popular revolt against the regime in Tehran, maybe this time those who revolt will succeed in turning Iran into a democracy in the manner that most Iranians want. Only a paragraph of the present tensions with Iran have been “written” by the events of the past six weeks, not even a chapter. The next instalment awaits.
