AS Pakistan is actively engaged with the United States, maintaining close coordination to promote de-escalation and facilitate a path towards meaningful negotiations, the war has intensified mainly because the US is not living up to its own pledges not to hit civilian infrastructure, prompting strong retaliatory strikes by Iran.
The entire world expressed its serious concerns over threats of President Donald Trump to bomb Iran to the Stone Age but instead of exercising restraints, his military, together with Israel, targeted the country’s largest bridge and in response Iran has started attacking premises of high tech companies in Gulf countries.
Previously, it was widely believed that Israel was conspiring to derail the peace process by indulging in actions that lead to expansion and prolongation of war but the latest statement of President Trump reveals Israel was acting in full connivance with the United States. The US leader said Israel was a good team player and it will stop when the United States stops, adding Tehran’s energy infrastructure was next in line (after the bridge). These are not mere threats as the US and Israel have so far hit over six hundred schools and education centres in Iran since the beginning of the conflict on February 28. This has pricked the conscience of many experts of international law in the United States, who, in their open letter has concluded that American strikes in Iran may amount to war crimes. Over one hundred experts from schools like Harvard, Yale, Stanford and the University of California, said in the letter that the conduct of US forces and statements by senior US officials “raise serious concerns about violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law, including potential war crimes”. There are genuine concerns that by targeting Iran’s civilian infrastructure, the US and Israel were provoking Tehran to hit important targets in Gulf countries, raising economic costs for them and seriously denting their efforts to make the region a technology hub. Iran says it has already targeted American steel industries in Abu Dhabi, American aluminium industries in Bahrain and data centres of two US firms – Oracle in Dubai and Amazon in Bahrain. All this shows the peace process is threatened unless, at least, there is temporary ceasefire and a full-stop to provocative statements.
