The Philippines and other highly oil-dependent countries severely impacted economically by the US-Iran conflict have seen a glimmer of sunlight that the dark days may soon be over. 

Karoline Leavitt, the official spokesperson of the Trump administration, announced over the weekend that an acceptable framework for a ceasefire with Iran had been reached, which Trump trumpeted on social media a few days before. Leavitt’s press announcement made it official.

Or was it really? The question now is, will it hold? With the seesawing we have been seeing as the man in the White House, who has the whole world holding its breath, is wont to do, we can only keep our fingers crossed he won’t change his tune again. History has shown us that truces and promises are a delicate matter easily broken by hubris, mistrust and miscalculation.

Let’s run through some possible spoilers.

There is Israel’s Netanyahu, the man who critics say inveigled the US to take a more aggressive stance against Iran. Time and again, this ultra-right-wing hawk has struck out on his own. Should this habit resurface, all bets are off since Iran will surely retaliate.                                                 

Similarly, Iran’s proxies in its fight against Israel and the US — the Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Popular Mobilisation Forces in Iraq, the Houthi militants in Yemen, and the Hamas in Gaza — independent of Tehran’s orders could continue their campaigns, dragging both sides back into confrontation.   

Ceasefires are put to the test not only in combat but also at home. The hardliners in Israel, notably the Likud Party, which catapulted Netanyahu to power, could press him to resume Israel’s campaign against Iran. In the US, with the mid-term elections around the corner, the significant Jewish influence on politics and policies cannot be ignored.

If somehow Israel, whatever the trigger, reignites the fuse of war, Trump will be hard-pressed not to follow Netanyahu’s lead.

All ceasefires are dependent on trust. Trust, however, being a human emotion, is perilous and fragile. Trust rests on the pledge that both sides will keep their word and stick to the promised commitment. But as in any human relationship, trust can be easily broken. A miscue, intentional or not, could create doubt. Doubt that if it happened once, it can happen again. And with doubt, there will always be lingering questions that will take a humongous effort to overcome by the aggrieved. 

Just ask anyone who has sadly experienced the perils of doubt in any relationship.

In this ceasefire, surely, a promise that the US will extract from Iran is the commitment to refrain for a period of time from building up its enriched uranium program that will capacitate the creation of a nuclear warhead.

How this will be enforced can only be feasible if the US or neutral UN observers are allowed on the ground by Iran. History tells us, however, that barely four years after the Obama agreement of 2015, during the first Trump term, the US unilaterally withdrew from the accord, which opened the floodgates for Iran to resume enhancing its nuclear program without detection. 

Was Republican Trump’s pride piqued that it was a Democrat, Obama, who would get all the accolades from history for this peaceful breakthrough, or was the withdrawal prompted by a real concern that Iran somehow was able to surreptitiously build up its program without detection?

Hubris or doubt? No matter the reason for the withdrawal, the irony is that as the US and Iran struggle to recover from the mutual infliction of pain on each other, the parameters of this very same framework will likely be the key to paving the way for a lasting peace. 

But it will require a superhuman effort by future leaders of both countries to regain the element of trust in their relationship that whatever will be agreed upon will be adhered to, because deception and greed can always worm their way to the surface.

A parallel I see is the way our own political playbook is repeated over and over again. 

Alliances and promises for the convenience of the moment are the key to power. But once attained, human greed and deception eventually surface, blindsiding the people who voted these leaders into power. 

Is this the inevitable, sad fate of our existence?

Until next week… OBF!