When events are filtered through time and space, they give us patterns that help us formulate future projections. In international relations, resembling current circumstances and arrangements with past patterns greatly aid in drawing comparisons and forecasting the emerging conflicts in the world.
The worst conflict that the world has dreaded since the culmination of WWII is a third world war. Such a war can never take place without US participation. However, with an anti-war US President in office, should the world still dread the coming of such a war in the near future? One thing peculiar about the large-scale wars that the US has fought in the past is how it was attacked and drawn into these wars.
Nobody was sure that the US would declare war on Spain until the US battleship USS Maine exploded in Havana Harbor in 1898. Only when the British Ocean Liner Lusitania was sunk and resulted in the death of about 2,000 people including 128 Americans that the US was sucked into WWI. Isolationism was being practised as a principled foreign policy goal until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in Dec 1941 pushed the US into WWII.
If 9/11 had not happened would the US have led the global war on terror? The world sits on a tinker today and when one looks at what is happening around one of the global hotspots, Yemen, in the Indian Ocean between Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, the projected picture seems scary and the historical patterns start forcing us to imagine and construct a storyline not dissimilar to how the world ended up experiencing world wars.
Houthis support Palestinians and would not back off. Americans cannot tolerate Houthis damaging the Israeli interests so they will intervene as is evident from the recent US precision strikes at targets in Yemen. Saudi Arabia which was spending $3 billion per month in the past to fight a war in Yemen doesn't mind US military strikes against Houthis who Saudi Arabia considers Iran's proxy. Fixing Yemen favourably fixes the Sunni-Shiite struggle for dominance and control in Saudi Arabia's favour.
As the plot of the story in the Middle East thickens, the emerging villain in the eyes of the Western world is not Israel but Iran. What happens to Iran between now and the next two months — given that President Trump has given as a deadline to Iran to reconsider joining a nuclear agreement — will determine what kind of war America is likely to fight — another unnecessary war like the many it has fought previously, a war of deliberate choice that aims to degrade Iran and end its nuclear ambition once and for all, a preventive war of self-defence that ensures deterring both Yemen and Iran and forcing them to back off from their idea of harming Israel, or a war of attrition which may result in accidents like USS Maine, British Ocean Liner Lusitania in the past or a large scale Iranian drone attack on Saudi oil refineries. Would the stage then be set for another global war?
The long-term consequences of the great power's actions and even their inactions in the past had deep global impacts. When Europe was devastated after WWII, the Marshall Plan instituted Europe's economic revival, subjecting rest of the world to learn an important lesson - political settlement always precedes any economic growth or reconstruction.
In theory, this lesson can be applied to the entire world but in practice, its application remained continental and confined only to the continent of Europe. Today, the Trump administration talks of displacing the residents of Gaza to neighbouring countries, taking over the responsibility of rebuilding Gaza, and handing over better living conditions to these people but disregards the prospects of any political settlement that may precede such actions. This will not work and as long as any political accord remains elusive, violence in the Middle East will persist.
Houthis attack Israeli shipping in the vicinity of Yemen because they support Palestinians. The continuity of such attacks is related to Israel's insistence not to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza. The ceasefire deal is stalled and Israel has killed hundreds of Palestinians in renewed air strikes. This is not a pushback but an incentive to Houthis to further target Israeli interests. Americans blame Iran for backing Houthis and the American maximum pressure campaign is designed to end the actual source of this Houthi backing but the developing scenario is taking a global shape as the other two great powers, Russia and China, are keen to continue to extend the economic lifeline to Iran. How can any maximum pressure campaign against Iran succeed when the other two great powers don't join such a scheme and are ready to bail out Iran?
It sounds so familiar, when we recollect how WWI commenced with Austria-Hungary declaring war on Serbia, and Russia mobilising forces to aid Serbia. Germany invaded Belgium, and Britain came to the rescue of Belgium and France aiding both Britain and Russia because of the treaty of alliance. If Israel attacks Iran's nuclear facility, wouldn't Iran retaliate? Consequently, if Americans support and aid Israel, would Russia and China remain far behind in supporting Iran?
During the Cold War, George Kennan's recommended grand strategy of containment was used as one order sought to overthrow another. As the communist order crumbled so did the Soviet Union. A similar strategy of containment may once again be used. But this time it may be used by the Axis of Resistance to contain the US-Israeli primacy and the constant endeavours of both these countries to manipulate, control, dominate and exploit Middle Eastern geopolitics.
President Trump has already cautioned Iran that it will be responsible for any attacks by Houthis in the future. The Americans and Israelis both are working on the hypothesis of Iranian weakness. Both consider Iran to be truly weak and vulnerable in its current condition. Iranian proxies Hezbollah and Hamas are badly bruised after the Israeli military campaign; and Syria the longstanding primary logistic route for sustaining Iranian proxies has been compromised.
Israel considers that attacking and degrading the Iranian nuclear power plant at this stage would give them a clear advantage in this small window of time in which Iranian proxies after suffering many casualties are weak and in a process of regrouping and rebuilding. The next two months will be crucial and the Trump administration should do well not to force a war upon Iran. Had Britain and the US not conspired in 1953 to remove the democratic government of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, Iran could have been a great democratic success story today.
Pressurising and isolating Iran has turned out to be failed US strategies to change Iranian behaviour. Bullying Iran won't work either. The Trump administration's best shot would be to give diplomacy a chance. Iran may relent if sanctions are lifted and it is allowed to come out of international isolation. What is the harm in trying that - revert to the status quo if this fails.
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