The beginning of a new decade was convulsive because an elected snollygoster president of the United States (US) ordered the assassination of the head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds force, which further exacerbated the already turbulent situation in the Middle East. As a retaliation, Iran fired multiple ballistic missiles on two airbases Al-Assad base, west of Baghdad and Erbil base used by the US and other coalition forces in Iraq. This is the first time after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor during WWII; a country strafed American airbases. To understand the ongoing tug of war between both archrivals Iran and the US; we have to go through the archives of history.
The main problem started between both nations when the United Kingdom (UK) and the USA overthrew the democratically elected Iranian government of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953 to install a pro-American regime. After World War II there was an ideological war between the US and the then Soviet Union (USSR) which was democracy vs communism, but in the case of Iran, the US abrogated its own ideology in favor of monarchism. Approximately six decades later in 2013 the CIA finally shared the details of operation Ajax, that how the US-orchestrated the 1953 Iranian Coup d’etat.
The Iranian nation defenestrated the pro-American regime because Mohammad Mossadegh was a beloved figure in Iran. During his tenure, he introduced a range of social, political and economic reforms, the most significant being the nationalization of the Iranian oil industry. Great Britain had controlled Iran’s oil for decades through the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. After months of talks, the prime minister broke off negotiations and denied the British any further involvement in Iran’s oil industry. Britain after WWII was not that strong enough to topple the elected government so Britain appealed to the United States for help, which eventually led the CIA to orchestrate the overthrow of Muhammad Mossadegh and restore power to Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last monarch of Iran.
The Iranian nation stood behind Imam Khomeini, who finally got successful to topple the reign of Muhammad Raza shah Pehlavi’s through an Islamic revolution as a result of which Iran became an Islamic republic in 1979. This Islamic revolution further aggravated the US Iran relations. The US imposed a series of sanctions on Iran right after the Islamic revolution and helped other Arab nations to attack Iran and the most notorious war was the Iran, Iraq war (1980-1988) for eight years, which killed millions of people on both sides.
After WWII the United States’, foreign policy was regime change policy. The list of countries attacked by bombing, sabotage or attempted to overthrow the elected governments since WWII is too long. For instance, Syria 1949, Korea 1950-53, Iran 1953, Guatemala 1954, Tibet 1955-70, Indonesia 1958, Cuba 1959, Congo 1960-65, Iraq 1960-63, Dominican Republic 1961, Vietnam 1961-73, Peru 1965, Angola 1980, Lebanon 1982-82, Libya 1986, Kuwait 1991, Bosnia 1995, Afghanistan 1998-2001, Yugoslavia- Serbia 1999, Iraq 2003, Somalia 2006-2007, Libya 2011 (Arab spring), Iran 1979-present and the list is too long to mention here.
The main question is why the US is in the Middle East. Everybody knows the fact that in history nations use to invade other countries for resources. Resource exploitation was the main motive behind the British colonialism of the subcontinent. In this context, the Middle East is blessed with oil resources and the USA’s major interest in the Middle East is the oil resources. Iran is the fourth biggest oil producer in the world. To get over the control of those oil resources, the USA invaded Iraq in 2003 in the name of Weapons of Mass destruction and after annihilating the whole country in 2011, the US administration said that the WMD report about Iraq was wrong and called it an intelligence failure.
It is pertinent to note that the USA is repeating the same rhetoric in the case of Iran (WMD) and the same divide and rule policy in the Middle East. The current Muslim world is divided especially the Middle East into two blocks pro-American and anti-American. Saudi Arabia leads the pro-American block whereas Iran leads anti-American. Muslim nations need to understand the fact that the USA wants control of oil resources nothing else.
The current turmoil between the US and Iran is exacerbating by each passing day instead of de-escalation both nations are heading towards war. As Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei announced to take revenge on slain General Qasim Sulaimani. Whereas US rejoinder was more strict sanctions. A nation that is already facing sanctions from the last four decades, imposing more sanctions will ultimately lead to war. This is also a challenge for Pakistan’s foreign policy because Pakistan has deep relations with all three nations USA, Iran and KSA. Pakistan cannot bear the flames of war in its backyard. Pakistan paid a huge price for peace in the region. Pakistan is not able to be a part of any other war in the Middle East, therefore, Pakistan needs to play the role of a mediator between all three nations to bring them on the table to exonerate the situation.
The role of the United Nations (UN) is also extremely critical in this scenario. The reason behind WWII was the failure of the League of Nations, which was established after WWI to prevent any such misadventure in the future. For the same purpose the UN was established after WWII, however, unfortunately, the UN miserably failed multiple times after its inception. For instance, the Korean War, cold war, Kashmir issue, Palestinian issue Rohingya Muslims massacre and the list go on and on. These unresolved issues are major blowbacks for the credibility of the UN.
Today most of the intellectuals think that the world is again at the brink of another World War. In this case, the United Nation’s role becomes more prominent. The UN chief repeated his four-point message to world leaders, after this IRAN US rising tensions that is to: “Stop escalation, exercise maximum restraint, re-start dialogue and renew international cooperation.” However, I did nothing on practical grounds, to resolve these ongoing issues, which is very unfortunate. UN needs to resolve all ongoing issues between the US and Iran before it gets too late to prevent any misadventure in the near future.
The writer currently is pursuing a master’s degree from University de Lille, France. He can be reached at [email protected]