Come to a full stop. Think. I think Iran is buying time. Giving itself opportunities to rebalance and rebuild. Count its losses, pick up the pieces. Regroup and be ready for Phase II. In thinking, this question should feature prominently: what kind of peace is this? A temporary one, a phony peace? A time of quiet calm, with calculating the angles, and weighing options, by both the US and Iran. Prime Minister of Israel, Ben Netanyahu, most likely has his own visions, ideas of how to get closer to realizing them. One such idea could be to go full burst, now that a sworn enemy is on the ropes. Poorer judgments may have been made, but it’s difficult to pin them down.
Iran can be compared to the Romans. Like the British and Turkish, the mindset is still one of hanging on to dreams of empire. What once was, now fully faded. This is what the US-Israel Cordiale Entente seeks to demolish, then dismantle one bomb and brick at a time. Blockages are thrown in to assist in achieving the onetime objective. Recall that it was ‘unconditional surrender.’ It took the horror and fallout of two now ancient atomic devices dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to the bring Imperial Japan to its knees. It may take only one to get Iran to that state, but who would stand for that move? Which leader in which country would feel safe? Which leader, a powerful competitor, would not ask of himself: who’s next? Who next could incur the rage of these trigger-happy Americans who used to care and make a big hullabaloo about human rights, but now tramp all over that mystery beast called international law? Think, people, think.
Long gas lines. Gas prices gone up. What makes airplanes fly, and stoves in the homes flicker to a flame. Then think of the bakery and the price of bread, then mosey on over to the drugstore and the price of meds, if there’s any cash left in the purse. A small, contained war, now approaching two months, and what started out as a yawn has developed into fits of sneezing. A short war, a conclusive war, is loved by the smart set and the well-set who live in the West. Iran knows that a long war, a costly one, is anathema (a curse) to regular Americans, regardless of their visions of returning to triumphant ascendancy. I think that the Iranians are yielding for the moment to buy time, to take stock, to measure the odds of their long-term survival. As a respected and dignified nation, and to be treated as such. Far be it for me to think that Iranians are going to lie down and die. Or play dead. Or submit fawningly to the whip of its tormentors. Recall the resistance in Iraq, and the related costs. Recall also that the Persians are made of different stock. Life teaches that books are never fully and permanently closed amid such heartfelt sentiments of: “Great Satan” and with “Axis of Evil” as the searing retort.
Now think of this. Israel is not going to let up. Certainly not an Israel Firster as committed as Benjamin Netanyahu. The issue for Americans is where they stand with this proposition: As Israel goes, so must America. Americans have enough battles of their own. So, a premium consideration has to be: why up to the shoulder blades in another man’s war? The US as the much bigger and brawnier partner in that Axis should not take kindly to fulfilling the role the dog that is driven by its tail.
So, how does this conflict terminate? In the circumstances and span of 1978 forward, likely Mossadegh and the 1950s, can it ever terminate quietly and conclusively? Lots of bad blood and blood shed. I think a chessboard is under review. Moves and countermoves considered, with the price of each attached. Whatever kilometers have to be seized, and coveted oilfields taken, the cost could be a drenching. Incidentally, whatever happened to alternative sources of energy? Finally, I think the Iranians are playing a turtle’s game: pull in head. Suck in the adventurous and reckless.
