Understanding the Iran-U.S. standoff
I can’t blame Iran, a sovereign nation, for refusing to budge against a perceived Western bully paranoid about the possibility of a nuclear showdown.
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I can’t blame Iran, a sovereign nation, for refusing to budge against a perceived Western bully paranoid about the possibility of a nuclear showdown.
While the US and Iran continue to play a game of chicken with either country too proud to blink, the world holds its breath, guessing, praying, hoping that somehow sobriety and the current ceasefire announced by Trump would prevail.
This hope, however, is pretty dicey as America’s partner in this wildly explosive adventure, Israel, has just announced it will take action on any perceived threats coming out of Lebanon and Hezbollah, Iran’s ally. Whether the US can rein in Israel remains to be seen, as Netanyahu has time and again gone off on his own whenever he pleased.
Clearly, the preconceived notion of the US that Iran would be bowled over by its devastating missile and drone strikes — apparently crippling, for now, Iran’s capability to build up its nuclear program — has proven to be flaky.
Iran’s retaliation of closing the Strait of Hormuz appears to be a winning hand that the US did not anticipate. Furthermore, the economic strain on the world, particularly on highly oil-dependent countries like the Philippines, with the sudden cutoff of 20 percent of the total oil supply, is likely to cause havoc as well on the gas-guzzling populace of America.
With the US mid-term elections coming up in November, Trump will be hard-pressed not to negotiate a face-saving deal with Iran to preserve the Republicans’ majority control of both the US Senate and House.
Trump has also demanded, but Iran has so far refused, the surrender of Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile, which gives credence to America’s concern that Iran will soon have nuclear power and along with it nuclear missiles, a dangerous development that has Trump edgy and which was his raison d’etre for triggering the massive bombing campaign against Iran.
On the other hand, Iran insists that its nuclear program — which dates back to 1974 when the country’s newfound wealth due to the booming oil prices provided it the wherewithal to pursue this ambition — is its sovereign right to develop for peaceful as well as defense purposes. More significantly, it has become a matter of national pride and is deeply ideological.
From a distance, objectively, I must say that I can’t blame Iran, a sovereign nation, for refusing to budge against a perceived Western bully paranoid about the possibility of a nuclear showdown. I guess it must be the memory of the 444 days of captivity of 53 American hostages during Jimmy Carter’s presidency in 1979 that still haunts the US.
In that particular episode, after a botched rescue attempt by America, the hostages were released only after the signing of the Algiers Accord brokered by Algeria, wherein both the US and Iran had to compromise on their initial hardline positions.
Ironically, the Algiers Accord actually bound the US not to intervene politically or militarily in Iran’s internal affairs. Hmm… so who’s in the right and who’s in the wrong now?
Meanwhile, as the whole world collectively holds its breath and suffers the consequences of the dueling intractable powers, the price of Brent crude from the Middle East, which is 98 percent of our oil consumption, has expectedly soared and breached over $100 a barrel, considered improbable barely a few weeks ago.
On our end, this has of course, fueled local price increases which have almost doubled since the conflict. Inflation has also begun to rear its ugly head as BSP Governor Eli Remolona has already moved on an interest rate hike, albeit moderate at 25 bps or to 4.5 percent, to forestall a looming worrisome inflation scenario of 6.3 percent for 2026, which is way off the BSP’s target of a 2 to 4 percent range.
So, what is in the cards for this mess?
Looking at history, particularly the Algiers Accord and the Obama–Iran detente of 2015, clearly the key resolutions will again have to be a similar compromise on both sides with a scaled back enrichment program and the turnover of enriched uranium short of enabling a nuclear weapon, at least in the near term on Iran’s side, plus the revival of the UN supervised monitoring team of Iran’s scaled back uranium enrichment program.
And for the US, its goal will be the cessation of all military operations and the phasing out of economic sanctions, particularly on the trading of oil, to restore the revenue flow of Iran.
There will still be some sticking points, however, such as the management of the Strait of Hormuz and the length of “pause” time for the build-up of Iran’s nuclear program that could again be a fuse for future overt conflicts.
The world can only keep its fingers crossed that a renewed ceasefire agreement will hold long enough for the situation to normalize.
Finally, again as part of the playbook of history, both sides will announce to their respective domestic constituents a “win” to stave off any political fallout from their compromise.
Until next week… OBF!
For comments, email bing_matoto@yahoo.com.
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