WEDNESDAY witnessed another stark contradiction in the conduct and behaviour of the United States and Iran as President Donald Trump while signaling an early end to the war threatened to bring Iran to the Stone Age and his Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian, in a wide-ranging open letter to American public, questioned long-standing assumptions about Iran as a security threat, traced grievances in bilateral relations back decades and insisted that Iran’s recent military measures are grounded in self-defence rather than aggression.
The sum total of the utterances of both leaders is that they want an end to the conflict but with a marked difference: President Trump wants to do so after decapitating Iran whereas President Pezeshkian pleads for an immediate end to the costly and futile war. It is regrettable that as Iran was extending an olive branch for the sake of peace and security of the region and beyond, the US President, as usual, preferred hurling threats, vitiating atmosphere for behind-the-scenes talks aimed at de-escalation. What an irony that a leader who came to power with the pledge of getting rid of wars his country imposed on smaller and weak nations, is now talking almost on a daily basis in terms of target killing of leadership, bombing of ordinary citizens and destruction of civilian infrastructure in Iran. Despite his own claims that there was ‘practically nothing left’ to target in Iran, the intention to bomb Iran to the Stone Age is a clear indication of the US frustration as it now wants to target the economic assets and infrastructure of the country including oil and energy installations, educational institutions and pharmaceutical industry. In fact, despite intense bombing of Iran, the US and Israel have miserably failed to dent the defence capabilities of Tehran as is also evident from retaliatory attacks carried out by Iran against Israel and US military bases in the region. The plans to ‘hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks’ might make the job of mediators difficult, who are striving hard to create a salutary environment for the dialogue process to produce positive results. Better sense must prevail and hopefully, in response to the letter of the Iranian President, people of the United States would exert pressure on their government to mend and review its position.
