Jimmy Carter Chastises Trump: “US Most Warlike
Nation In History”
Saeed Naqvi
You may not
have noticed it, but America’s war with Iran started some days ago, and may not
be going too well for the world’s mightiest power. This is not a war that
President Trump, as Commander in Chief, is enthusiastic about. The eager
beavers, the trigger happy foursome lurching towards war are what Iran’s Foreign
Minister, Javad Zarif describes as Trump’s “B” team – Bibi Netanyahu, John
Bolton, bin Salman and bin Zayed.
The Chief of
Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards thumps the table and declares in Iran’s
Majlis, “Ofcourse oil tankers of all the countries will pass through the
straits of Hormuz if Iranian tankers pass, but if Iranian tankers cannot pass
then no tankers will sail through the water way.” Clearly, David is daring
Goliath. There has been no response from the would-be belligerents. Two of the Arab
“Bs” have fingers on their lips. There is a simple disincentive for Trump, always
keeping a hawk eye on US economic interest, not to go for the final war with
Iran. With the Iranian threat removed, who in the region will buy US arms?
If all of this
turns into a major conflagration, the message to the world will be loud and
clear: the US has been dragged into a conflict which Israel and Israel alone
really wanted.
In fact there
are military strategists who fear that Israel too may at this moment be in a chastened
mood. It may be nursing wounds recently inflicted by the missile barrage from
Hamas on the first day of Ramadan. Ofcourse, Israelis retaliated fiercely but
why did this exchange not develop into a major pummeling of Gaza? It appears
the Gazans, with help from Hezbullah and Iran, have assembled ingenious devices
which can penetrate what was advertised as an invincible missile defence
system. The, system, Iron Dome, has been manufactured by Rafael Advanced Defence
Systems and Israel aerospace Industries.
For Israeli Military
Elite, the Iron Dome’s vulnerability is as unnerving as the destruction of the “world’s
most invincible Merkava tank” by Hezbullah in an earlier engagement inspiring
the New York Times to a memorable headline: “Israel is powerful, Yes. But not
so invincible.”
Iron Dome’s
alleged vulnerability must inspire caution. It may well be seen as a restraining
factor, one that would cause the belligerents to hold back their horses. And horses
have been pulled back by the Arab B team. After all, two Saudi tankers were hit
off the coast of Fujairah. And what was the B team’s response? Silence. If this
were not sufficient provocation, the embattled Houthis in Yemen shocked the
Saudis by hitting and disabling their oil facility in Saudi Arabia not by a
missile but a drone which dodged the radar and struck key Saudi oil installations.
Saudi’s have taken revenge by bombing the Yemeni capital, the ancient city of
Sanaa. Diplomatic grapevine is abuzz that Riyadh has communicated to their US
interlocutors that the latest bombing was part of their ongoing war with Yemen.
Iran was not in the bargain.
Meanwhile, Secretary
of State, Mike Pompeo turned up in Brussels expecting to be kissed on both his
cheeks by European leaders for having set up a showdown with Tehran. He had
probably forgotten that just last week he had ditched Angela Merkel after
having set up a meeting in Berlin, his first with the German leadership. Germans
don’t like being stood up. Negative German vibrations must have reached
Brussels. But this was not the only reason for the cold reception Pompeo
received. Ofcourse, there were no takers for tightening the screws on Iran.
There was on the other hand, great concern that President Hassan Rouhani had,
on the anniversary of Trump backing away from their commitment to the nuclear
deal, indicated that Iran would begin to dismantle the agreement too if
Europeans did not hold their nerve in the face of US bullying.
It hurts the
US most when their cousins across the Atlantic begin to chastise them. UK
Foreign Secretary, Jeremy Hunt echoed the mood in Brussels. “We are very
worried about the risks of a conflict by accident”. The international community
is on edge because it has a sense of history. The First World War was
accidentally triggered when Archduke Ferdinand was shot dead in Sarajevo by a
Serbian militant.
Conversation
veers around to anxieties on these lines after US intelligence spotted missiles
on small boats placed by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. The difficulty in
reading the Iranians at this point is twofold: is this escalation by Iran or a defensive
move on its part. Even more worrying is a huge question mark on the reliability
of the Deep State: what intelligence does it have and what is its agenda?
Time was when
CIA had a reputation for well processed intelligence data, but the record all
along has been mixed. How many times has the CIA misled the administration? Did
not the US intelligence say with great authority during the Korean War that
China will not cross the Yalu River? It did. Neither the Soviets no the Chinese
will help Vietnam. They did. Assad will go. Has he? Maduro will go. Has he
gone?......the list is inexhaustible.
Trump should
feel a little humbled by President Jimmy Carter’s description of the US “as the
most warlike nation in the history of the world”, Carter revealed in the course
of a talk in his Church in Plains, Georgia, a recent exchange with Trump.
President Trump expressed his anxiety to Carter about “China’s growing economy”.
He was anxious: “China is getting ahead of us.” Carter replied “since 1979
China has been at war with nobody, and we have stayed at war.” In Carter’s
words there may be something for New Delhi to ponder too. Also, a sensible
power would balance its relations with others and not give any nation the right
to veto relations with Iran which all Prime Minister including the BJP’s Atal
Behari Vajpayee have consistently considered India’s natural ally.
# # # #
No comments:
Post a Comment