Daily Times

Since the early days of his presidential campaign, Donald Trump has had unpleasant views about Iran.

The general atmosphere has become precarious as of late.

Political fragilities are getting complicated as the geopolitical outlook seems more intricate in the war-racked Middle East.

The hawkish warmongers started prevailing ever-stronger in the Persian Gulf as US President Donald Trump, at first, approved the airstrikes and instantaneously called off the operations just moments before warplanes launched the strike-package to hit the targets in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The US action was approved as a counteroffensive in the wake of Iranian Revolutionary Guard shooting down a US surveillance drone, Global Hawk, on June 20. As a result, the whole world sat nervously watching the fast escalating situation in the Persian Gulf.

The sudden change of discourse of not attacking Iran for little known reasons, however, averted the calamity for a while but trouble still hangs ahead.

The strategic implications of threats emanate from hybrid warfare by Iran, the blockade of strategic Hormuz Straight–one of the vital global artery for seaborne oil shipments–and most-anticipated threats to the US forces stationed in the region posed by Iranian proxies, likely to be in the realm of possibility, which led to abandon extremely detrimental manoeuvre by the Trump Administration.

Not surprisingly, since the early days of his presidential campaign, US President Donald Trump had unpleasant views about Iran, which stood the cornerstone of his campaign. Trump has been quite consistently attacking the joint comprehensive plan of action, known as the Iranian nuclear deal, ever since.

The agreement was hard-earned by his predecessor in a joint effort with permanent five members of Security Council Plus Germany.

Despite the assurances by International Atomic Energy Agency, which confirmed Iran’s compliance to the JCPoA, last May, Trump pulled out of the deal, a move apparently made a great blow to Washington’s global credibility, its commitment to stand as an international guarantor to uphold agreements. More importantly, it made a dent to the already turbulent liberal order.

The US obsession of regime change in the Middle East under the disguise of September 11 attacks, a disastrous formula, unapologetically wielded as a justification to support the US military adventurism, in order to attack any nation on the planet

Trump’s motivations to dishonour the global agreement was soon out of the bag when Rudy Giuliani, the close confidant of Trump, expressed unambiguously in May 2018 that Trump was “as committed to regime change in Iran as we are.”

He further reiterated this was “the only way to peace in the Middle East” and was “more important than an Israeli-Palestinian deal. ” Such comments leave little to the imagination about Trump’s desire to continue following Bush’s legacy of removing regimes by force. This was an extremely unpopular and equally flawed recipe that proved to be a great disaster for regional peace and prosperity.

The similar line of the attack shortly pursued by the US National Security Adviser, John Bolton, another hawk in Trump’s administration holding a critical profile, convincingly threatened to come after Iran, demanding “change in Tehran’s behaviour and there will be hell to pay if they don’t happen.”

It only showcased the prevailing bias and desperate propaganda efforts to sell against Iran, something akin to US false propaganda of stoking fear of weapons of mass destruction, just before the invasion of Iraq.

The US obsession of regime change in the Middle East under the disguise of September 11 attacks, a disastrous formula, unapologetically wielded as a justification to support the US military adventurism, in order to attack any nation on the planet.

The US campaign of “War of Terrorising, the world, instead of “War on Terror,” a futile attempt to make the world a terror-free. However, this has made it worse: terrorism is ubiquitous now than ever before.

The 15 years of the US intervention, however, created a massive security vacuum in the region. As a consequence, a legion of terrorist organisations, extremist groups and militias flourished to a degree beyond expected further exacerbated the regional order.

As a byproduct of the US War of Terrorising, the unknown Islamic State (IS), also known as Daesh, gained global prominence. Today, it becomes a paramount security challenge in the region and a great force to reckon with, thanks to the US legacy.

However, the US has become an advanced stage cancer, a fatal disease, further metastasized to the body politics of the whole region. It finds it painfully difficult to stop the virus from penetrating further.

According to one recent study published by the Watson Institute at Brown University, US, 9/11 war and military actions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Pakistan have cost the US $5.9 trillion. The report also finds that as a consequence of the US War on Terror, more than 480,000 people have died from the wars, and more than 244,000 civilians have been killed as a result of fighting. Another 10 million were displaced due to the violence caused by the US. The tidy US spending to destabilise, destroy and displace the world could otherwise have spent to develop the insatiable needs of the world.

The US, after its long-standing isolationism, made its war debut by dropping nuclear bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing more than 300,000 people, most of which were civilians. Ever since then, the US had been on the hunt, pouncing for its prey.

The US brutal counter-insurgency campaign in Greece killed about 150,000 people.

The most brutal US aerial bombing on extremely inoffensive East Asian state of Laos, during the nine years between 1964 to 1973, killed up to 350,000 civilians, earned Laos the unfortunate title of “the most heavily bombed country on earth.”

And yet, the US War on Terrorising the world unrelentingly continues to threaten global peace and prosperity.

As Trump tweeted this May, “If Iran wants to fight, that will be the official end of Iran,” he implied the threats of nuclear war against Iran.

The nuclear giant has probably forgotten the massive death and destruction it had caused humanity in the first instance of a nuclear attack, still haunts the world.

The US has become a global destabilizing force. The preeminent US military destroyed the whole bunch of countries and destabilised the regions: bullying the weaker nations and creating a permanent destabilisation for the American advantage.

The US-led global campaigns against the so-called War On Terror in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria and Libya, yielded nothing but strife, instability, divide, carnage and the expansion of extremism.

It is, nonetheless, no better time than now for the regional powers to act and reorient themselves in order to uphold the security of Asia. Regional powers, including China, Russia, Turkey, Iran and Pakistan, in a coalition of other Asian nations have the duty to prevent the US frenzy of regime change at the expense of regional peace and security and protect the regional order.

Trump’s tornado of impulses must be halted to make yet another case of war against Iran. The region cannot afford to have another regime change, merely to quench the US lust for power.

The writes can be reached at ranasarfraz3417@gmail.com