US war on terror is widening its sphere with the possibilities of war hovering over defiant Iran whose nuclear strife and defiance to IAEA obligations has become the grin of the world; while undoubtedly making it more prone to US military attack that woefully will affect the political crises in the Middle-East.
The indications of attack are quite prevalent as US warships gushed to the Persian Gulf on May 24 and Bush predicted a bloody summer in Iraq. However, the question is whether it will be safe for US to go ahead to strike Iran? The results of Afghanistan and Iraq war are disastrous. It resulted in discontent for the citizens of both countries - for civilian causalities, to US people - for rising soldier causalities and there is tremendous wastage of money for attaining victory that too without realizing what victory actually means.
US military attack is of great strategic importance and some of its probable repercussions are mentioned below:
1) US army is tired of war and some of its most senior military commanders are willing to resign if White House goes ahead and strikes Iran. They are willing to step down rather than approving the attack that they deem as reckless.
2) Military attack will leave US diplomatically isolated and ‘coalition of the willing’ will be nowhere to support war against Iran.
3) Oil prices will shoot up in case the US and other western nations carry out any military action against Iran because it may block the Strait of Hormuz through which huge quantities of crude oil pass everyday and where the American warships guard.
4) US war on Iran will boost up regional crises as Iran sees Israel as a target and has ballistic missiles that can reach every European capital. If Iran responds, then Hizbullah will jump into the war and Syria expectantly will do the same while we don’t even know how Hamas will react to the developments. Therefore, before using force, we need fully to exhaust the course of sanctions.
5) The attack will increase the threats of violence, political turmoil - wherein we interpret occurrence of violence to the extent of enormity of the human costs, infrastructural damages, environmental hazards and with that very act of war will gradually deteriorate the political balance of Mid-East.
6) Attacking yet another Islamic country will give impetus to Islamic fraternity to collaborate against US and in that condition US will become more prone to terrorist attacks.
7) Attack on Iran will further damage US image, therefore, US should act wisely while learning lessons from its past mistakes and adopt a more responsible attitude and have a multilateral approach towards the world issues than losing another war that doesn’t seem to produce results other than Afghanistan and Iraq war did.
I think, that US should put more stringent sanctions on Iran and we will start to see their results by the end of the year as we are already seeing the beginning of this with Iranian financial and economic officials complaining that their moves are blocked due to President Ahmadinejad’s policies. With more stringent sanctions, US can stop trade between Iranian banks and American and European banks thus giving jolt to Iranian economy. The economic sanction will stop them accessing refined fuel and abstain them help to renew their outdated oil infrastructure.
In addition to this, US should put measures on N. Korea to avoid its nuclear proliferation to Iran and many US conflicts, e.g. Missile Defense Initiation in Europe, with Russia will be resolved.
Furthermore, I agree to Mr. Reid statement that striking Iran will be a disaster and to his proposal whereby he states that reaching out to Iran’s sizable under-30 population, a group he referred to as “a generation of potential reformers”, and by eliminating America’s dependence on foreign oil, US can shed the security threat from Iran.
Image Credit: Reidreport
Source: Reuters
