The strikes, on 22 June, by the United States of America on facilities associated with Iran’s nuclear operations in Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan had all the wrong resonances. By threatening to extend both the reach and intensity of the ongoing conflict between Israel and Iran, the operation, named “Midnight Hammer,” further escalated tensions in the Middle East.
Yet, this might be far from the beginning of World War III as some currently fear, if one is convinced of the longer-term sanctity of the ceasefire between Israel and Iran, announced by President Trump the day after the US strikes, even while this was initially breached by both sides. And, there are threats of further violations of the proclaimed ‘truce’ in the absence of sustained mutual de-escalation.
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Whilst it could be claimed that Iran would possibly bear the greater brunt of these emergent hostilities in the face of continued US-Israeli offensives, still despite Israel’s fierce and ruthless censorship on the reporting of its recent losses, we now know that it suffered far-reaching wreckage from Iran’s response to its military campaign alongside America. The attacks on Haifa and its port, Beersheba, Jerusalem, residential precincts in Tel Aviv, the Mossad headquarters, and the Nevatim Airbase (location of the F-35 stealth fighters and the Prime Minister’s air fleet), were devastating and strategic.
Also, the assault on Tel Noff Airbase, home to Israel’s nuclear capable jets; the Rafael Defence facilities, where the Iron Dome, comprising major missile systems, is made; the Weisman Centre, which is the hub of its chip production centre; and the Soroka Hospital, contributed significantly to Israel’s eagerness in agreeing to a ceasefire. Equally, despite the strike on the US’ Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, the Americans and Israeli have both engaged in a showboating propaganda game to feed red meat to their political bases.
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However, the exposure of Iran’s vulnerabilities by Israel’s attacks and the US’ airstrikes may have an unintended longer-term consequence. Persuaded of the need to hedge Iran’s military options, regime hardliners may rush to acquire nuclear arms that will only hasten their next high-intensity conflict with Israel.
Is there a civil way out of these reciprocal attacks, and what instruments exist to ensure that none spirals into much larger regional wars?
Despite what key parts of the global geo-political establishment thought were the significant advances of the post-WWII years, recent wars underline a persistent and growing inclination towards the deployment of instruments of mass violence by both governments and non-state actors. From Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, through Hamas’ 7 October outrage, to Israel’s exaggerated responses to this, its seemingly gratuitous attack on Iranian infrastructure, and the US’ grandstanding on Iran, the path to belligerence in this decade has been strewn with less than noble considerations.
None the less ungratifying has been the hypocrisy of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the messy position of its leadership, which played a complicit handmaiden role for Israel in this conflict. As long as Israel, North Korea, India, Japan, and Pakistan refuse to be signatories to the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Arms Treaty, while IAEA compels inspections and compliance from others, the context for Iran’s subsequently declaration to refuse cooperation with the body becomes a lot easier to comprehend.
Hamas’ coordinated attack on Israel and the kidnap of Israeli nationals on 7 October, 2023, was designed to trigger responses from Israel that it had hoped to parlay into the struggle for an independent Palestinian State. Of course, Hamas was aware that Israel’s response was going to involve many deaths. That, in pursuit of Binyamin Netanyahu’s domestic political ambitions, Israel chose to kill far more Palestinians than Hamas expected and the rest of the world considered a measured response to the initial outrage by Hamas, is all the current debate over Israel’s war in Gaza about.
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Disagreeable as the terms of engagement of the resulting Israeli war on Hamas has been, parallels are ineluctable. From the war in Ukraine, through Mr Trump’s tariff wars, the world is an increasingly impotent witness to the subordination of what used to pass as national interests to that of the leaders of a growing number of countries bent on radically reconfiguring the moral architecture of the post-World War II order.
Almost invariably when leaders deploy the institutions of the state to defend against threats to their persons or political agendas, much more formidable threats emerge to the larger collective. The calls across the world for a de-escalation of conflict situations (from Ukraine, through Sudan and the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, to the Middle East), which PREMIUM TIMES endorses, make sense in the light of the needless loss of lives and property that these wars entail.
It is hard to ignore how new technologies have increased the destructive capacity of munitions, making the world’s killing fields far messier today. And, as in parts of Ukraine, and all of Gaza, the new ways of fighting simply underscore how not too distant mankind is from the rest of the feral animal world.
Yet, modern advances in technology, and humanity’s recent strides on the fronts of new drugs and potential drug compounds, machine learning, etc., also reinforce the requirement to correspondingly create opportunities worldwide for mankind’s peaceful development.
There is, thus, a compelling case to be made for a reworking of the global political, social, and economic order. And, that this process must be underpinned by a reinforcement of universal human values. By definition, whatever interventions the world will require to reset away from its current course on the road to chaos, will call for multilateral interventions. And this is where the difficulty lies.
What are universal human values, by the way? And, how can a consensus be built on these across the world’s fragmenting geopolitical zones, towards the attainment of a shared morality and meaning?
Therefore, the new global order that will replace the post-1945 one will struggle with revalidating established parameters, even as new norms will be shoehorned into place. PREMIUM TIMES recognises that this will not always be a beautiful process; but we are in no doubt that it needs not be put together on a bonfire of human lives.
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