Chronicles of a Chronic Caribbean Chronicler
By Earl Bousquet
The Caribbean, like the world, remains stuck in the revolving door between relief, frustration and uncertainty, after the highest level of talks between Iran and the US in 47 years — to end a war started 40 days earlier — came to a crashing end after less-than one day of talking.
The two sides had basically agreed on everything, but the negotiators left Islamabad empty-handed.
With no trust, there was no deal, but even before the US negotiators landed in the US, President Trump said he’d ordered the US Navy to take control of the Strait of Hormuz.
The president’s hard-nosed and forked-tongue approaches to international politics and diplomacy have more-than-once brought Humanity close to the brink of the next global war since the second ended in 1945.
Last week, he set a 10-day deadline for Iran to comply with a long list of demands guaranteed to be rejected by Tehran.
But as-soon-as the world started to breathe a few slight sighs of relief, President Trump would do the next unthinkable thing: he attacked Pope Francis, the pontifical head of the Roman Catholic Church.
Apart from attacking the head of 1.3 billion Catholics worldwide and both his Vice President and Secretary of State being strong Catholics, the US President’s attacks on the fellow American stirred-up Christians worldwide, their highly-spirited opposition driven by not only his choice cuss-words now reserved for Sundays, but what most saw as a mocking of the image of Jesus Christ.
Adverse pressure at home and from abroad forced the president to pull-down the online depiction of himself as Christ Divine didn’t spare him from the Christians in his MAGA base, who also riled up against what many considered a mass of messy pottage flowing from his mouth.
The president claimed the image was intended to make him look like a good doctor caring, yet, not even the IT-generated doctor’s best miracle cure could have helped repair the damage already done to his unholy image.
But while the world is left between disappointment and anxiety, there’s reason to still hope for the best — and prepare for the worse.
Why?
For starters, the President has dug himself into two deep holes and: First, the global effects of the war on energy supply and prices everywhere; and secondly, the growing political pressures at home ahead of mid-term elections in November.
Unable to risk signing an Executive Order sending Americans into another faraway ‘Forever War’ and returning daily in coffins draped in Stars and Stripes ahead of the elections, he also can’t simply continue sleep-walking Americans into war while paying more-and-more at the fuel pump.
Just as bad, President Trump has so-pissed-off his European allies with his threats to pull out of their NATO military alliance that he leads (as US Commander-in-Chief), they’ve wisely rejected his invitation to join his plan to walk them into a Doomsday trap in the Strait of Hormuz.
Honesty declaring his entirely selfish objective (supposedly in faraway ‘US national interests’) is to ‘take Iran’s oil’ and access its precious rare earths (like already done in Ukraine).
In the process, the US has lost the public support of allies like Australia, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, South Korea and the UK, that remain ultra-careful not to join another war led by a partner they feel they can no longer trust.
The Gulf States are also now having second thoughts about continuing to host US bases, openly denying their factual use.
But, even so, President Trump and his reluctant Gulf and Middle East allies all need some very- strong doses of realism.
They would certainly be living in La-La Land to believe that Iran will simply give-up its main trump card – the Hormuz Strait — through which 20% of the world’s oil flows; or, to promise never to develop its nuclear ability, stop manufacturing its own missiles, or to stop insisting Israel stops its new war on Lebanon.
Tehran has been able to demonstrate an amazing capability to continue fighting with the type of discipline and determination — including issuing warnings before delivering promised attacks — that simply amazes traditional war analysts.
Successive US Presidents – George Bush Jr, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Trump (twice) – have for 24 years built the steps that led to today’s quagmire, but Washington has tried unsuccessfully for 47 years, to turn back the Iranian Revolution.
Obviously too, over the four-plus decades, the Iranians built a long-term defence capacity that allows them today to simultaneously engage in defensive attacks on US military bases in neighbouring Gulf nations, but also keeping the US navy at bay in the Strait.
President Trump’s open threat to annihilate over-90 million Iranians and wipe the entire Persian civilization off the face of the earth is simply impossible, but no one can say he won’t be driven by his demonstrable frustration to try something out-of-the-ordinary.
With crucial elections due in Israel in October and the US in November and Iran’s demonstrated ability to continue launching successive ‘waves’ of simultaneous rocket attacks at all its foes in the region, neither Israel, nor the US, want this war (that they imposed) to continue.
With Iran’s Hezbollah allies nowhere near being disarmed in or by Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen threatening to close the Bab-al-Mandab Strait (that lets Saudi oil into the Red Sea), prospects for prolongation of the growing global energy crisis are more real now, than ever.
But there’s still time left for the US President to convince the Israeli Prime Minister to stop playing his spoiler role.
President Trump still wants to quickly proclaim ‘Mission Accomplished’, but it’s not that easy when Iran simply refuses to back down and while Israel continues its increasing bombing sorties across the Islamic Republic — and mercilessly pummelling Lebanon.
The three sides to the conflict therefore continue to talk diplomacy, while waiting to see which will blink first.
Meanwhile, all are keeping their fingers on triggers.