You Can’t Kill Dreams

“Words matter,” I headlined a week ago, after noting coarse language from Trump that should not reach children’s ears. “Words are meaningless,” I could write today, given the US president’s contradictions of his own declarations and his swings from threats of bombardment to claims of ongoing peace talks with Iran. 

Nonetheless, should the Middle East’s bloodletting cease, it would matter much to its peoples and to the entire world, many parts of which, especially perhaps in Asia, are facing shortages of cooking gas and of fuel. 

As I type these lines on the morning (India time) of Wednesday March 24, Trump continues to claim that the US and Iran are talking, while Iran continues to deny that. It was said on Tuesday that formal talks might soon happen, thanks, it seems, to mediation by Turkiye, Pakistan, and Egypt. 

Which does not necessarily mean that serious talks will actually take place, or that they would be fruitful. Word of heavy Israeli bombing in Tehran on the night of Tuesday-Wednesday, in Esfahan on Monday-Tuesday, and of fresh damage caused in Tel Aviv by Iranian missiles does not strengthen optimism. That US marines and paratroopers seem to be on their way towards US bases near Iran is not reassuring.

There’s also the view that Trump’s “announcements” of “productive” talks are connected to a wish to influence prices in the US. If fuel prices go down and stocks go up, he benefits even as preparations to intensify and enlarge the war go forward.

THREATS & COUNTER-THREATS 

Other conclusions also seem justified. Though weakened by massive (and hugely destructive) attacks from the US and Israel – 82,000 sites in Iran have been damaged thus far, according to the Red Crescent – the country has survived thus far, as has the Tehran regime. At 6 a.m. Indian time on the morning of March 24, Frank Gardner, BBC’s security correspondent, had in fact given a “one-nil” score in Iran’s favor in the ongoing encounter. In his Instagram report, Gardner suggested that while the US and Israel had been ceaselessly energetic near the Iranian goal-post, it was Iran that had scored the first goal. 

The game is far from over, but one inference is hard to resist. The oil-rich but in other ways extremely vulnerable Gulf states have probably persuaded Trump against implementing his threat to bomb Iran’s power plants. In pressing their view, these states were perhaps influenced by Iran’s warning that in retaliation it would attack plants generating electricity for US bases in the Gulf as also plants that desalinate sea-water for the immense desert which, for all its fabled growth, the Gulf region still is. 

The widely respected Pakistani newspaper, Dawn, reports that it was informed on March 23 by an unnamed government official that Pakistan was engaged, along with Turkiye and Egypt, in “active back-channel diplomacy” to “bridge the gap between” the US and Iran.

DIPLOMATIC CONDUIT? 

The official told Dawn that this diplomacy involved Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, and claimed that Pakistan, Turkiye and Egypt were engaged in “quiet communication” to restore peace. “Strategic synergy” between Ankara, Cairo and Islamabad was said to have established a “vital diplomatic conduit.” 

Confirming a role in the diplomatic activity by Pakistan, the BBC suggests that Pakistan’s military chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, is playing a direct part. 

The Indian online news portal, The Wire, reports that a graphic on the screen of Iran’s state television read, “US President backs down following Iran’s stern warning.” On the other hand, The Wire quotes Fox News to suggest that talks over the phone between Turkey’s foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, and his Iranian counterpart, Abbas Araghchi, contributed to whatever progress that may have taken place. 

Also according to The Wire, Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, and the US vice-president, J. D. Vance, “reportedly discussed a US-Iran deal after Trump signaled progress in talks with Tehran, despite Tehran’s denials.” 

Observers like me cannot confirm the accuracy of such reports. I quote them because they come from professional outlets. Uncertainty is about the only thing of which we can be certain. 

A BBC story of March 24 quoted the White House as saying that the situation was “fluid” and cautioned that no formal meetings between any top leaders from the US and Iran had yet been scheduled. 

“‘These are sensitive diplomatic discussions and the US will not negotiate through the press,’ Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, told the BBC in a statement.” 

Dawn’s security analyst is also worth listening to. Baqir Sajjad Syed wrote on March 24: 

“The situation at the end of Day 25 tells us that while some effort may be under way to tactically contain the war, one cannot ignore that it is expanding structurally.”  

WHITE HOUSE GYRATIONS 

Trump’s ability to contradict himself ceased long ago to surprise, but on March 22 Anthony Zurcher of the BBC put some of the president’s utterances together for our enjoyment: 

“The war is ‘very complete, pretty much’, the US president has said, but new American ground forces – including a Marine expeditionary unit – are moving into the region. It is ‘winding down’, but US and Israeli bombing and missile strikes on Iranian targets continue unabated.

“Opening the Strait of Hormuz, the geographic choke point through which 20% of the world’s oil export travels, is a ‘simple military maneuver’, but for now only Iranian-approved ships are transiting the waters. The Iranian military is ‘gone’, but drones and missiles are still striking targets in the region and targets have extended as far as the joint US-UK base in Diego Garcia.

“In a Saturday evening post on Truth Social, Trump threatened an escalation, warning that if Iran didn’t ‘fully open, without threat’ Hormuz in 48 hours, the US military would begin targeting Iranian power plants, ‘starting with the biggest’.” 

Those 48 hours departed a while back. Who objects to Trump eating his words? Still, why are US troops moving towards Iran? 

THE ISRAEL EXCEPTION 

Broadly speaking, our world’s political map has endured for more than 75 years, from the time, not long after World War II ended, when countries in Asia and Africa gained independence from European rulers. Upheavals have mostly occurred since then within national boundaries, but these latter lines have not been redrawn. 

Except for the creation and expansion on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea, south of Lebanon and west of Syria, of Israel. This creation and expansion took place without the consent of the populations that used to inhabit the spaces now occupied by Israel. Installed in 1948 with the support of all the victors of WWII (including the US, the UK, France, and Russia) but with the unavailing opposition of the Arabs who were compelled either to vacate their homes and fields or in essence become serfs to the newly arrived, the state of Israel has steadily enlarged itself over the decades. 

To the Palestinian lands that were first appropriated to create this Jewish state of Israel, portions of Syria were forcibly attached. Now parts of Lebanon are being joined to Israel against the will of uprooted Lebanese families. Israel is being expanded again. 

There were reasons and also excuses for these developments. After WWII ended, guilt about their forebears’ anti-Jew policies and prejudices propelled Germans and other Europeans to support Israel’s creation outside Europe. That Lebanon’s Hezbollah organization has backed Iran’s distaste for Israel, and on occasion caused damage to the Jewish state, is the latter’s explanation or excuse for bombing Lebanon, blowing up bridges there, displacing hundreds of thousands of Lebanese from their homes, and attaching portions of Lebanese territory to itself. 

Israeli ground troops are now widely expected to move deeper into Lebanese territory, nailing down Israel’s expansion. “The number of people reported killed in Iran and Lebanon since the start of the conflict is now in the thousands,” says CNN. The number of the internally displaced in the two countries taken together may be close to three million or even more.

QUESTION OF THEOCRACY 

Another point is worth mulling over. The Iranian regime’s theocratic character was a prominent excuse for the joint US-Israeli war on Iran that was suddenly launched a few weeks ago. However, the openly and uncompromisingly theocratic character of vital components of Israel’s government was and is completely ignored. It doesn’t trouble champions of the war on Iran. 

The world dares to hope that the war will end, that ships carrying oil and gas to Asia and elsewhere will be able to move again in the Persian/Arab Gulf, and that flights across the Middle East’s vulnerable skies between Asia and Europe will also be resumed. In addition, the world hopes that costs very few can avoid – of cooking, driving, commuting, flying, and coping with the weather -- will not rise to unbearable levels. 

Still, no one should expect Israel to return seized southern Lebanon to Lebanon, or the Golan Heights to Syria, or Gaza and other seized Palestinian lands to any Palestinian authority. A steadily expanding Greater Israel is a reality.

This is an observer’s assessment. On the other hand, observers – and the world’s citizens -- may also harbor hopes and dreams. Certainly I want, hope for, and dream – even in the midst of today’s devastating war -- of a Middle East where countries like Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Iraq, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, and Yemen coexist peacefully with one another as independent states with defined boundaries. 

ENDING ETHNIC CLEANSING 

Adopted amidst great hopes after WWII ended, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights seems a dead letter today. After the current Middle East war ends, our world’s citizens ought to demand a reassertion of democratic rights and a restoration of humaneness. A new noble declaration will be called for. 

Within and beyond national boundaries, differences must be accepted and neighbors respected. Each state should advance towards a clearer separation of state from religion, and each religious community in every state should advance in internal reform. 

Ethnic cleansing must cease! Israel should be informed of its limits, and Palestinians should receive the freedom obstinately denied to them. Neither Jews nor Muslims, neither Sunni nor Shia nor Druze nor Alawite nor anyone else should suffer for their religious belief or for being born to their parents. Or for being a woman. Or for their sexual orientation. 

Wars will destroy much. They cannot kill our dreams.