DC Edit | Sliver Of Hope As US Hits War ‘Pause’

US President Donald Trump, who began the war on Iran on February 28 in collaboration with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has hit the pause button while assuring that Iran power plants will not be hit till Friday. Are these the first slivers of hope breaking through the gloom to signal the ending of an unjust and senseless war or are the sceptics right in warning that the climbdown by avowedly the world’s most powerful armed forces makes no real sense?

The anticipation is that the de-escalation, which brought forth a positive response from the world’s oil and stock markets, is the best thing that could have happened in a war in which Iran stood up to the US and its allies and put the world’s energy supplies in dire straits by blockading the Strait of Hormuz checkpoint. The combatants, in a welcome moment of realisation, may have reached a point where they cannot imagine nor compute the cost of escalation.

It is the contradictory signals from both sides, with Americans wondering if this is just another TACO (Trump always chickens out) moment and the Iranians speaking in multiple voices, that is worrying. Some say talks are on and others are outright denying that anyone in the high clergy or the IRGC was willing to say that they are in touch with the Trump family representatives or acolytes as the US President claims. Clarity may have come in news trickling through of Pakistan playing host soon to an Iranian peace delegation.

Erratic messaging amid the clouds of war was a bane as the world waited with bated breath to see if Mr Trump touching the “pause” button will lead to the “stop” button being hit by all parties, including Israel which continued to pound Iranian targets even after Trump’s call as Iran continued to retaliate. Contradictory war rhetoric is not illogical but any true desire for peace can find a medium only in action commensurate with stopping the bombing and giving dialogue and diplomacy a chance.

There is no dearth of willing middlemen, including those not quite possessing the genuine credentials of peacemakers like the Pakistan general Asim Munir. It should still be welcomed if good can come out of supping with the deadly and the dubious. After all, a lasting peace is high on the list of desires of people of the world who can make no sense of the war while they are left wondering how their lives and their pockets will be hit by multiple crises of energy disruption, raw materials shortage and an interrupted supply chain of consumption goods.

The point is Iran has waged efficiently enough its asymmetrical war while showing no compunction in hitting Arab and Gulf nations with the drones and missiles of modern warfare that makes almost any war unwinnable, especially one against a nation like Iran that has roughly retained all its borders in the same region for more than 2,500 years.

No doubts need to be entertained over the biggest challenge to the Americans since they gave up their position in Afghanistan recently after having solved very little in interceding militarily in the region as in the Iraq war, in Syria, Libya and in northern parts of Africa. American intervention — or should it be termed American imperialism — has seen little success in West Asia and more eastern parts, beginning with Vietnam.

Why not declare victory in quintessential Trump style and leave Iran alone rather than escalate and see the whole region burn in conflict? Singing Elvis Presley songs in Graceland may seem surreal as war machines are operating but it is time to accept gracefully it’s more pleasurable than bombing Iran.