By Anjan Roy
The American era has ended on April 7 night US time with the Trump administration toddling its way into a ceasefire agreement with Iran. The day before, American president Donald Trump had threatened to wipe out to extinction a civilisation — Iran’s.
Most ironically, the day after the threat of Donald Trump, the old civilisation struck its blow to vanquish the bully America into a “fragile” ceasefire which did not meet any of the objectives with which an unthinking president had suddenly launched a war. Donald Trump might now be described, Donald Defeated.
Iran, the land of Persian civilisation spanning over two millennia, received the threat of obliteration from a country with a history of 250 years, boasting on its fire power.
Donald Trump, US president, had sounded a very uncivilised threat to Iran about an American bombing attack which he promised would erase a whole civilisation. He said Iran must agree to do a deal with America and open up the Strait of Hormuz by April 7 evening, if the country was to avoid such a destiny.
Diplomacy is obviously not America’s forte, as of Iran. Once again, Donald Trump has lived up to his reputation of TACO, as even most of American press is now pointing out. Worse of all, Trump damaged himself the most.
After Trump’s ceasefire statement, a group of high profile Americans have urged for invoking Amendment 25 of the Constitution for the US vice president to declare the president to be in unstable in mind and remove him from office. Such a public talk was not in the sir before.
Iran has now deigned to a ceasefire for two weeks. But it has retained what the American president had been vociferously fighting for: opening the Strait of Hormuz. Iran, going by reports, empowered itself to charge $2 million for every take passing through the strait.
That was not surely in the power of Iran when the war began. Donald Trump has now presented on a platter the Strait to Iran straightaway. This is a major disaster for the rest of the world. No other stretch of international seaway has been claimed by a littoral state as Iran now has. It claims to own and control movements through it.
And yet, Donald Trump has claimed total and complete victory. The bluster Trump is seeking to sell is obvious to the world and there will be little faith in American protection for any international commitment.
The while world sees through Trump’s wild rhetoric. While almost all nations have welcomed the ceasefire, no one failed to point out the need to open up the Strait of Hormuz as a free, International seaway. This is a tactic admission of the fact that the sudden war and even more sudden exit has left the world very much worse off.
Additionally, Iran has presented a ten-point peace formula, which lists a payment of war reparation for rebuilding the damages inflicted. It has also demanded complete halt to attacks on its proteges, like Hezbollah in Lebanon or the Houthis in Yemen, and others.
When the war was launched by US, there was the principal demand for a change of regime in Iran. After the war, and in ceasefire, the regime remains in form grip of the country and its people. The objective of regime change has plainly been rebuffed.
The regime had brutally suppressed a popular movement against it murdering of scores —many thousands of young protesters — to maintain itself in power. With this ceasefire, these elements have got a new lease of life and would continue to execute more protestors.
This is a major loss for the Iranian people as before the war, they were still hoping that with deteriorating economic condition, a sort of insulation under the sanctions, the regime would in time be toppled and Iran would once again be a free country.
Now that Iran has agreed to a ceasefire, it is demanding payment of reparations. Who will pay such high rebuilding funds is not clear. But from Iran’s viewpoint, it would obviously be the aggressor.
The US president’s vituperation against Iran clearly reflected his own frustration at not being able to call a decisive victory over the country. His war, originally thought would be over in a week’s time, have dragged on into its second month without yielding any clear win for the US.
The current US president with a lie-time background of real estate and construction industry, has his unique language. While delivering his extinction threat he had hoped that something “revolutionarily” wonderful could happen as well. That indeed, had happened with his abject submission to a fighting Iran.
Trump’s hubris knows no end. In his super-rich busy life, he did’nt probably had the time to occasionally go through such beautiful lines like in Gray’s “Elegy”:
The boast of heraldry, the pomp of po’wr
And all that beauty, all that wealth ever gave,
Awaits alike th’ inevitable hour:
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.” (IPA Service)
