News reports that outgoing US President Donald Trump actually contemplated bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities after indications that Tehran might have gone over its processing limits are very disturbing and have very understandably caused shock and horror all over the world. Granted, the president is very upset about losing the election. And it may seem a little embarrassing, to Americans and others, that he’s being such a bad loser but he’s still well within his legal rights to dispute the outcome and there are laws in place to address just such deadlocks. But for him to risk starting another war in the Persian Gulf that would surely spiral out of control just because people not voted for him the way he would have liked is just going too far and there must also be some rules to stop a president who’s bent upon acting like an enraged elephant rampaging across the jungle just because he stepped on a thorn.
This just adds to the long list of items and events that have thoroughly exposed the US electoral and political systems over the last few years; especially more recently. Why must a president who has lost the election take so long to hand over power? And why, even more importantly, must he enjoy all powers especially the power to wage war anywhere in the world in that time? Who will be responsible if he authorises the US fleet in the Middle East to fire a few cruise missiles inside Iran, to complement all the jet strikes of course, and then makes way for the next president? There has to be something very wrong at the heart of any system that allows such things. Now it’s got the whole world sitting on edge till the formal transfer of power in Washington; whenever that is going to be.
The good thing is that he was talked out of such plans by his senior staff; or at least that is what has reached the international press so far. Hopefully that would be the end of the matter. Everybody knows that the Israelis, along with some of Iran’s not-so-good friends in the Gulf, have pushed Trump for strikes for years. So far Trump has resisted and it should remain so over the next few months. Pakistan, being Iran’s next door neighbour, stands to be among the biggest losers from any such misadventure. The foreign office must make it very clear to Washington that no such plans will ever be tolerated in this region.
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