Another One Bites the Dust

The assassination on 28 June 1914 of the visionary, anti-war, reformist, but hugely unpopular Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, by a 19 year old Bosnian Serb student, Gavrilo Princip, at Sarajevo, led to war against Serbia. This in turn triggered the Great War, that commenced exactly a month later and lasted till 11 Nov 1918. It had global repercussions and resulted in humungous numbers being either killed or wounded, around 40 million, including 9 million civilians.

We then had the Last War, the war to end all wars, or so it seemed, if the horrific, unspeakable and wanton destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were what future conflicts heralded . Motivated by the angst of one racist egotistic totalitarian leader, out for revenge and wanting more, on one hand, and supine cowards on the other, who saw appeasement as the art of the deal. The result, casualties more than double the number of the Great War, with approximately 80 million dead worldwide, including around 55 million civilians.

Since then, as Milton Leitenberg in his monograph, (Occasional Paper #29, 3^rd Ed, Cornell University Peace Studies Program) Deaths in Wars and Conflicts in the 20^th Century, estimates that till the end of the Century approximately 41 million have died in armed conflicts (Table 2). If deaths due to war-related famine and sickness were to be included, the numbers would probably be in the vicinity of over 150 million. Presently, the independent non-profit think- tank, the Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP), headquartered in Sydney, in the 2025 edition of its Global Peace Index (GPI) finds “that global peacefulness continues to decline and that many of the leading factors that precede major conflicts are higher than they have been since the end of WWII”.

It further goes on to add that “there are currently 59 active state-based conflicts, the most since the end of WWII and three more than the prior year. Last year, 17 countries recorded over 1,000 conflict deaths. Additionally, the successful resolution of conflicts is lower than at any point in the last 50 years. Conflicts that ended in a decisive victory fell from 49 per cent in the 1970s to nine per cent in the 2010s, while conflicts that ended through peace agreements fell from 23 per cent to four per cent over the same period”.

In the circumstances the attack on Iran by the combined might of the United States and Israeli military should come as no surprise, especially given the fairly intense adversarial history that precedes this action. More importantly, both reasons advanced for this unprovoked aggression, which incidentally has neither the approval of the United States Congress nor of the UNSC, be it the alleged attempts by Iran to acquire nuclear weapons clandestinely, or its brutal suppression of internal dissent, are susceptible to being challenged and lack credible evidence in support of the accusations.

After all, it was not that far back, in June last year, that President Trump had publicly claimed to have totally annihilated Iran’s nuclear facilities during Operation Midnight Hammer. Thus, for Iran to have recommenced processing of nuclear fuel for the assembling nuclear weapons seems rather unlikely. Moreover, with regard to internal disturbances, the Iranian government has alleged that not only were these provoked by external elements, but even the casualties claimed were grossly inflated. Whatever be the truth, the fact of the matter is that such dissent is an internal matter and other countries have no legitimate right to interfere.

The true motivation for this attack seems to lie in President Trump’s increasingly desperate attempts to avoid evidence publicly coming out from the Epstein Files regarding accusations made against him of allegedly having been involved in sex with underage children. It is no coincidence that his partner in crime in this Iranian venture is Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who not only faces serious charges of corruption domestically, but also has warrants out for his arrest issued by the International Criminal Court for “the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution and other inhumane acts during the Gaza War.” History tells us that leaders have waged war for less.

While the stated aim of this exercise is “regime change”, some analysts have suggested that the larger aim is to damage China’s economy and rise, by curtailing the flow of Middle East oil on which it is greatly dependent. The fact of the matter is that the Middle East, especially the Gulf countries, are a major communication and trading hub connecting Asia, Africa and Europe. The type of dislocation, damage and destruction we are witnessing in the region not only adversely impacts China but also the world at large, including the United States and the West. It seems a rather odd and convoluted approach to adopt, to neutralise China’s great power aspirations. Indeed, America’s involvement in the Middle East gives China a free run in the Indo-Pacific and an opportunity to wrest Taiwan militarily, if it has that kind of appetite for risk taking.

As regards regime change, leaving aside the successful kidnapping of Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, which increasingly appears to have been an inside hatchet job engineered from within his administration, previous such attempts, be it in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria or Libya have ended in dismal failures. Even following the assassination of Ayatollah Khamenei and some of the top leadership this attempt is unlikely to find widespread support within Iran, especially after the tragic death of 165 innocent children in an elementary school for girls at Minab in a missile attack. In any case, success without boots on the ground is extremely unlikely. There is also no guarantee that successful regime change, forced through assassination, will result in the establishment of a friendly regime, one that could reinstate the Shah’s son for example.

If this conflict prolongs, as seems increasingly likely, further escalation seems unavoidable. In turn that will result in even more indiscriminate attacks against infrastructure and civilian targets in the region. The possibility of terror attacks against American assets outside the conflict zone and even within the United States then becomes a distinct possibility. Also as American and Israeli casualties add up, which they inevitably will, Trump and Netanyahu will find themselves under increasing pressure to look for an off-ramp as the likelihood of a positive outcome gradually diminishes. The resultant instability in the region will greatly impact Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the Gulf States, especially since their providing of military bases to the Americans, is what dragged them into this conflict in the first place. Ironically, it is all these countries themselves, which may very well end up facing the very real possibility of regime change.

Where does all of this leave us? Unmoored and adrift, it seems, would be the short answer. One needs to remember that our foreign policy in the Middle East is symbolised by our partnership with each of the warring factions as represented by our involvement in the ports of Haifa and Chahbahar. At the very outset of this conflict, if reports are to be believed, both ports have been targeted with no consideration given to our association with them, pointing to our irrelevance in the region at this point in time.

With over 9 million expatriates working in the region, and the total remittances from there amounting to $139 Billion in the last fiscal (FY2024-25) or approximately 38% of all remittances. Indeed, our existing engagement in the region, as represented by our Prime Minister’s recent visit and statements in Israel can best be described by the lines from the poet Alexander Pope’s 18^th Century poem, An Essay in Criticism, that goes “fools rush in where angels fear to tread”. It appears we may have well been lucky that unconnected events have overtaken our foolish actions this time. Our foreign policy establishment would do well to remember that national interest must never be compromised on the altar of personal interest. Keeping our head down and lips sealed may be the best thing we can do in the coming days and months till the storm passes over.