War is no option

Any miscalculated move in the context of US-Iran tensions can transmute into a large-scale conflict

Pakistan’s Foreign Office is right: any miscalculated move in the context of the prevailing US-Iran tensions can transmute into a large-scale conflict. There are others in the region harbouring similar fears.

Thus the warning from Pakistan that “war is no option” and that “all issues should be settled through peaceful dialogue and engagement by all sides” must not fall on deaf ears – especially now that the US has moved on with a massive military buildup in the region, having deployed an aircraft carrier, positioned B-52 bombers at al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, and sent F-15 jets to the region.

The situation is indeed very volatile and the recent hostile happenings – like the attack on vessels belonging to Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Norway near Fujairah; and drone strikes on oil pumping stations of Saudi state-owned Aramco that forced the kingdom to suspend oil supply to the Red Sea port – are feared to push it closer to a full-blown war.

While the US and its Arab allies suspect nobody else than Iran for the sabotage of the ships, the drone strikes being claimed by Houthis – thought to be an Iranian proxy – is good enough a justification for the US to go about settling the score.

The conflicts are a reminder of the build-up to the US invasion of Iraq in year 2003 that came on the false pretext of the weapons of mass destruction. The accusations against Iran by anonymous officials in the media are also likened to the campaign for war with Iraq.

National Security Adviser John Bolton has been advising President Donald Trump what to do – the same Bolton who advised President George W Bush on Iraq. It is, however, strange to see how Trump – who has been wary of large-scale foreign military entanglements and is desperate to pull US forces out of Afghanistan – could even lend an ear to Bolton.

Has it anything to do with the deep-seated sentiments of the Americans about the Iranians that have their roots in the 1979 hostage crisis, with Trump viewing the situation in the context of the approaching elections? The apprehensions of war are, thus, not unfounded.