US-Iran tensions: the myth and reality

The United States under President Donald Trump appears adamant to act like the sole stalwart it once was despite the fact and the awareness that the world is no longer unipolar. Radical changes have swept the globe over the last decade and a half.

Given the current situation on the global chessboard, the US narrative sounds like a paradox.

The end of the Cold War era had allowed the US to proclaim victory and end to the bipolar world following the fall of the Soviet Union.

However, this was a transient phase. Some people in the US might not have believed that its status as the soul superpower would be so short-lived. But that is exactly what has come to pass.

China and Russia have emerged strong and are increasingly a threat to its hegemony. In an increasingly interdependent world, it is very hard for any power to isolate or permanently dominate others.

In pursuit of its strategic interests, the US has always been willing to cause disaster around the world. The case of Afghanistan in 1979-89 and more recently of Syria and Iraq needs no comment. Its Israel-centric policy in the Middle East has long been a destabilising factor in that region.

Some argue that the United States is laying down the framework of a future policy to disturb regional peace to halt progress on CPEC

There is speculation that after its disgraceful withdrawal from Afghanistan and the lack of a decisive victory in Syria, the US is going to attack Iran.

Some argue that the US is laying down the framework for a future policy with a view to disturb regional peace to halt progress on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.

The US-led military coalition has been defeated in Afghanistan. Has the US learnt anything from it? Nobody knows for sure what is in store for the US in the aftermath of withdrawal from Afghanistan.

It appears that the withdrawal is inevitable, whether it will be honourable is still indefinite.

Its close engagement with Israel is one of the reasons for US problems in the Middle East.

The US also faces an image problem around the globe.

Syria and Iran are currently the only two countries seen as a threat to Israel. The US intervention in Syria has destroyed that country but not resulted in a regime change it had declared as its objective.

US designs for Iraq too have proved to a failure in material respects. Most significantly, Iraq today appears unwilling to go to war against Iran.

The burning question today is whether US can declare a war against Iran or not. Iran does not resemble Afghanistan or Vietnam. The Iran of Raza Shah Pahlavi is a distant memory.

There is a view that the deployment of US forces is meant only to pressure Iran and that a war is not planned.

Iran has so far stood its ground and refused to be dictated. Should Iran so wish, the Strait of Hormuz may become unsafe for oil trade thereby affecting almost every oil-importing economy.

The US might as well exercise restraint. But a miscalculation by either side may prove devastating for the world peace in general and for Asia in particular.

Also, the US might surprise everybody and take a U-turn as it did on North Korea.

The international community must rise to the occasion to defuse the tension.

The hope is that sanity prevails on both sides.

Pakistan should play its role to help deescalate the tensions.

The writer, an Islamabad-based lawyer, is a partner at UMR Practice