Agha Iqrar Haroon
The US attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities and entering into the Iran-Israel war has busted the myth that the global dynamics have changed and the world is now multipolar.
The US Bunker Busters have busted the cliché that China and Russia are major stakeholders in global affairs, and any strategic partnership with them can save any country from the wrath of the United States and Israel if both decide the destroy anything on earth.
It has been testified that the world is standing where it was when Iraq was destroyed in 2003 under the pretext of having Weapons of Mass Destruction. Afghanistan, Libya, Gaza, Syria, and now Iran under US attack confirmed again that neither the United Nations nor the OIC can save any country once the duo (US-Israel) have reasons to believe that destruction is inevitable.
Related Story: G7 Summit gives green signal for US attack on Iran
On June 16, all G7 members that are also part of NATO gave the green signal to the US to attack Iran; therefore, the concept that the Global South now matters has succumbed, and it has been testified that the Global North remains in control of the global decisions. The survival is not only of the fittest, rather of those who stand with the fittest, and this takeaway is important for Pakistan.
After this attack, Iran has several options to retaliate, and every option would drag Iran into deeper sluggishness. Iran knows it does not have the strength to take on the US as former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat that, “I could defeat Israel, but I could not defeat the United States”. On the other hand, the US has resources as well as the will to destroy Iran as it did in the past, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and Libya. The US can put its boot on Iranian soil as it did in the mentioned countries, and it has an operational US Air Base in Bagram, Afghanistan, where US Marines can land and enter Iran.
The world has already seen that Iran could not do anything after the Trump administration assassinated the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ elite Quds Force, Qassem Soleimani, in January 2020. It just launched a barrage of missiles at two American bases in Iraq, which caused no US fatalities, and the matter was closed.
There is a possibility that Israel, as well as the US air forces, would strongly attack Iran every day, so Iran uses its ballistic missiles to counter attacks, and its stockpiles diminish in some weeks. It was believed to have about 2,000 missiles capable of reaching Israel at the start of the war. Some estimates say Iran has fired 700 of them; others say around 400. Whatever the number is, its stockpiles are dwindling quickly. Moreover, US and Israel air strikes will continue to attack Iran’s ballistic missile launchers so Iran can run out of stable attack power. It is pertinent to mention that Iran has already lost its prime Axes of Resistance; its proxies in the region are no longer in power to attack US interests, except US-friendly countries and US Air Bases, meaning they will take the risk of attacking GCC countries and the majority of OIC’s members. Even closing down the Strait of Hormuz will be reacted to by GCC countries, and the war can spread to US-friendly countries in the region.
The Hope Theory
There is a Hope Theory that represents a scenario the US announces that it has achieved its goal of destroying Iranian nuclear facilities, therefore Israel and the US are ready to stop attacks, so Iran should come to the negotiation table. I believe that the US deep state would not allow this theory to work, as Israel would not stop attacking Iran, because the US deep state and Israel want not only to destroy Iran as they did to Iraq, but also want to change the regime as they did in Syria, Afghanistan, and Libya. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he doesn’t trust the negotiating process, and he doesn’t want to stop Israel’s military actions until all of Iran’s nuclear facilities have been completely destroyed. He’s also been bombing Iran’s oil terminals and gas facilities to put even more pressure on the regime.
It may be remembered that Iran submitted to negotiations in the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s when a US missile took down an Iranian passenger jet, killing 290 people. Iran then agreed to a UN-brokered ceasefire, causing an estimated one million deaths. The then-supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, called this ceasefire “worse than drinking poison”.
The circumstances suggest that US wants not only regime change and deploying the son of Shah of Iran rather wants to make “New Iran” a colony of European Jews who would be settled there with full peace and a Mini-Israel will be established in Iran bordering Pakistani and Afghanistan’s borders so it would be somewhere in Iranian Balochistan. West believes that the Islamic regime is very unpopular, but 90 million Iranians would accept such a New Iran is still a question for even European security experts. Even in this process, there could be chaos before achieving “New Iran,” and this chaos would harm neighboring countries that would face an Iraq or Syria at their doorsteps.
Too Early to comment
Right now, public polling by The Economist and YouGov, released on June 17, showed that 60% of Americans were opposed to joining the conflict between Israel and Iran, with just 16% in favour, and 53% of Republicans opposed military action. If the US has not yet destroyed all Iranian nuclear facilities, then this rating of displeasure would go high, and that will bring more US Bunker Busters to Iran, demanding complete destruction of Iran as Israel did of Gaza.
The World as Bystander
The United Nations, Russia, China, and OIC member states can denounce and condemn the US attack on Iran, but have no power to stop it, so NATO still rules the world under the command of the Global North, setting aside the concept of the emerging Global South. The realities of the world remain the EU and NATO, and all other alliances such as GCC, BRICS, OIC, African Union, SCO, etc, are practically and diplomatically losing their importance.
