DC Edit | US Must Get Iran To Table To Strike Peace Deal
Given the Iranians’ deep mistrust of the Americans, such warlike moves like an economic blockade and the seizing of an Iranian ship, however dubious its record, were akin to pouring oil on troubled waters
This is a war the US President Donald Trump started at the behest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and it is a war that he alone can end for good. Mr Trump needs the Iranians to come back to the table to strike any kind of deal that can put a full stop to the war and find a way out of the biggest energy crisis to envelop the world.
What halted the resumption of the talks, which failed in Islamabad last week, were Mr Trump’s mixed messages in his megaphonic announcements to the media or public commentary on his Truth Social. While a resumption seemed on the cards with Iran willing to come back to the table, Mr Trump put his oar in and consequently the restarting of peace talks had a cloud hanging over it.
Given the Iranians’ deep mistrust of the Americans, such warlike moves like an economic blockade and the seizing of an Iranian ship, however dubious its record, were akin to pouring oil on troubled waters. The position over the talks reversed with Iran now showing no urgency to start negotiating while the US needs relief desperately from petrol prices at the pump that have more than doubled to $4 a gallon and the President’s approval rating is going in inverse proportion even as the midterms are nearing.
Mr Trump’s reiteration of his civilisational threats and his statements about bombing Kharg Island and power stations have snowballed to such an extent that the climate for negotiations could not but go from bad to worse. Even before the talks could resume, Mr Trump had been trumpeting that Iran was willing to surrender its 400-plus kilos of enriched to near-nuclear-weapons-grade uranium.
It appears Iran has drawn a clear red line over the uranium, reiterating time and again it is not willing to surrender in a war that it has not lost despite being hammered 13,000 times with imperialist bombs. It is Iran’s much underestimated resilience that has brought America now to the point that it must make significant concessions if talks are to resume.
Negotiations cannot be easy given the fact that there is no clarity on whose voice among many from Iran that must be taken to be the one with real authority to decide — the theocracy now nominally under an injured Ayatollah or the executive arm headed by the President and supported by the legislature head even as there are doubts over the IRGC being the one calling all the shots in Iran now.
First, the ceasefire, which is scheduled to end tonight in American time, must be extended before fundamental issues like Iran’s interfering with the right of free shipping through the Strait of Hormuz can be taken up. One blockade is as bad as another and that goes for the US economic blockade too though it had to come up in response to Iran using the choke point as a powerful bargaining chip.
Iran’s resistance may have drawn life from the power of asymmetrical warfare with drones. What it has nullified to an extent is Mr Trump’s view of American air and naval power being the irresistible force he could wield at will on the assumption that it would stop Iran from gaining nuclear weapon prowess. It is time everyone realises that the war is not going to solve this issue or any other that have sprung from the breakout of hostilities. Get to the table and start talking is the only message that all the peace-loving parts of the world can say.
