Whatever the fate is of the putative two-week ceasefire agreement between the US and Iran, it remains historically significant due to novel dynamics that the war just revealed and that portend important new power relations regionally and globally. These include both positive and negative developments that are epic in their magnitude and historic in their implications for the future. Most analysis in the West has spoken of Trump searching for an “off ramp” to escape the danger he had painted himself into – using the analogy of how drivers on highways seek an exit ramp to enter a rest stop or a lower-intensity side road.
But what Iran has actually done is to instead offer Trump and Israel a chance to press the ejection seat button to escape their damaged fighter-jet – and survive without achieving their war aims. The war’s critical new dynamics have included the massive destruction of essential civilian infrastructure and military facilities across the region, by the US, Israel, Iran and Tehran’s allies. This includes the American threat of Iran’s annihilation alongside Israel’s actual genocidal destruction of all life-supporting mechanisms in Gaza and much of south Lebanon.
This disrupted vital global supply chains that impact every life and economic dimension – food, energy, water, technology, travel — and was tacitly supported by all actors’ foreign allies. It also confirmed the death of any international law or global treaty protections for non-combatants that once differentiated between military and civilian needs. All humans on Earth now live in danger.
Positive aspects of the Pakistan-mediated two-week ceasefire agreement are that it has been accepted — if not fully implemented — by all, and includes substantive concessions by all. Negotiations can succeed if the US and Israel send serious adults to discuss permanent peace, instead of frivolous media performers, professional killers, and nasty colonial officers. The US negotiators in particular should reflect the interests, values, and views of the American people, and stop taking instructions from Israelis.
Compliance with Israeli demands, however, is not only a Trumpian phenomenon; Washington has consistently reflected Israeli priorities and wishes in the Middle East since the 1950s, while not seeing the Palestinians, Lebanese, Iranians and others in the region as people with equal rights to Israelis. This war was instigated by decades of repeated Israeli pressure, exaggerations and lies about Iran’s unproven threats to the US and the region that successive White House leaderships swallowed. It was finally triggered by Trump and a few fellow circus-vintage dramatists — who also never consulted Congress as constitutionally required, and did not reflect the wishes of the American people, two-thirds of whom oppose the war.
It is also positive that the US and Israel agreed to negotiate on the basis of the 10-point Iranian plan, rather than the 15-point US-Israel agenda. This could allow negotiations to affirm the legitimate rights and needs of all concerned, rather than surreptitiously trying like thieves in the night to achieve by brute force and war crimes tactics what Israel-US could not achieve after six weeks of fighting and decades of sanctions and assassinations. The week ahead will clarify if this is a genuine ceasefire agreement, or just another American-Israeli con artist’s deception, like those they used to launch surprise attacks and assassinations in Lebanon, Palestine, Yemen and Iran.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
