Epic miscalculation

 Some things don’t go as projected. When United States President Donald Trump led his country to tag-team with Israel in attacking Iran a couple of weeks ago, he thought it would be an easy pie like Venezuela: go in, smash things up, expropriate some loot and exit tidily. Then, live ever after relishing the booty from the conquest.

The US military strike in Venezuela on 3rd January, codenamed Operation Absolute Resolve, resulted in the capture of strongman Nicolás Maduro, along with his wife Cilia Flores, to face drug-related charges in American courts. For icing, Washington commandeered Venezuela’s vast oil wealth after influencing the installation of someone it found acceptable as Maduro’s replacement. The operation by which Maduro was captured lasted under an hour and it recorded no casualty on US side.

But that was Venezuela. Iran is an entirely different pie that Trump took on in a military joint venture with Israel that was codenamed Operation Epic Fury. Nearly four weeks on, the operation is unravelling as one wild gamble that has savaged the world’s economy, such that the harsh effects are hurting even the most remotely located Nigerian. Besides, the war is hobbling Trump’s legacy and may end up displacing America from its dominance in world geopolitics. More than a dozen US servicemen have been killed in the war. And despite being badly decimated by American and Israeli strikes, Iran has shown a resilience that is dragging the hostilities beyond forbearance limits for much of the world, including for America where the same question that was once asked about Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq is now being asked about the endgame in Iran.

Since the war began, US and Israeli strikes have taken out the top layer of Iranian leadership – the strategy obviously being to decapitate the hardline theocracy and so leave the rump in disarray. Among the earliest casualties was former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Intelligence sources said the expectation by the US and Israel was that sustained strikes against government and military infrastructure in Iran would incite internal insurrection against the Tehran regime and precipitate regime change. Not that there was no legitimate reason for that expectation.

In the weeks leading up to the commencement of hostilities, there were street protests in Iran that were brutally suppressed by the theocratic regime. Trump at some point threatened intervention to help the Iranian people’s resistance against their leadership. On the heels of initial strikes against Iran in the current war, he called upon Iranians to seize the opportunity to throw off the clerical hegemony. But that call fell flat. Iranians have not taken to the streets against their mullahs and this absence of internal uprising has frustrated a secondary objective of the US-Israel mission, namely to stoke internal destabilisation of the Iranian state in complement to external military pressure.

Even with the emergent reality, Trump had wanted to impose Venezuelan solution on an Iranian problem. Following Ali Khamenei’s killing on 28th February, and when the name of a likely successor was yet being speculated, he told a media outlet he must be involved in the selection of Iran’s next leader and ruled out the prospect of Mojtaba Khamenei succeeding his father. “They (Tehran authorities) are wasting their time. Khamenei’s son is a lightweight. I have to be involved in the appointment, like with Delcy in Venezuela,” he said referencing Venezuela’s Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, who was tapped to take power after Maduro’s capture and has been very pliant towards Washington. “Khamenei’s son is unacceptable to me. We want someone that will bring harmony and peace to Iran,” Trump added.

“Consumer prices are surging in Nigeria because of inflated energy cost in direct consequence of the tension in the Middle-East. And we seem helpless.”

Well, the Iranian leadership corps went on to pick a successor to the late supreme leader and it was none other than his 56-year-old son, Mojtaba Khamenei, who Trump had warned was unacceptable. He obviously was not consulted, and was indeed defied with the selection of  Mojtaba on 8th March to replace his 82-year-old slain father. In effect, the US-Israel military strike that killed Ali Khamenei only succeeded in replacing an aged hardliner with a younger and brasher hardliner. Mojtaba’s ascendancy also signalled continuing survival of Iran’s theocratic regime, contrary to expectations that it will be displaced by the joint military operation.

In a statement last week, his first since taking office as supreme leader, Mojtaba doubled down on defiance: he directed the Iranian military to continue blocking the Strait of Hormuz and called on the country’s neighbors to close American bases being used to attack Iran. The statement served as an early indication of how the new ruler would approach the war and how he would rule his country. “Certainly, the lever of closing the Strait of Hormuz must continue to be used,” he said. Following the outbreak of hostilities, Iran had warned that ships passing through the strait, a vital oil shipping route on its southern coast, were at risk of being attacked, effectively halting transit through the route and sending global oil prices soaring.

Among other things, Mojtaba also vowed to avenge the death of Iranians killed by US and Israeli strikes. “We will not refrain from avenging the blood of your martyrs,” he said in a section of the statement addressed to the Iranian people, as he briefly recalled how the war had cost him individually. He noted the loss of his wife, sister and other family members in addition to his father in the US-Israeli bombing campaign, signalling that he viewed the cause as not just a national or ideological one, but also as personal.

If you wonder why this should bother us in this clime, consumer prices are surging in Nigeria because of inflated energy cost in direct consequence of the tension in the Middle-East. Are we seem helpless. The Strait of Hormuz is a 24-mile-long waterway separating Iran and the Gulf nations, and one-fifth of the world’s oil passes through it every year. The vast majority of ships are lately refusing to pass through, both because it is too dangerous (Iran has attacked several ships over recent weeks) and also because insurance costs have ballooned. Reports at the weekend showed that Brent crude, which Nigeria produces, had climbed above $112 per barrel. The sabre-rattling by Mideast gladiators portends prolonged tension, with all consequential effects for the global economy including how it bears on Nigerian consumers.

And it isn’t that Trump has ready answers; actually, he is only foraging for palliatives. The chances of bringing the war to a close soonest is remote, going by Iran’s resilience in the face of concerted strikes by the US and Israel. Neither can the gladiators guarantee safety in the Strait of Hormuz to allow for normalcy of global oil trade. And so, Washington lately assayed an interim relief measure by temporary lifting sanctions on Russian oil. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that countries could buy Russian oil that was already at sea between now and 11th April, in what he called a “narrowly tailored, short-term measure.” 

The announcement failed to calm oil prices, which have spiralled since Tehran effectively closed the vital oil chokepoint and began attacking energy facilities across neighboring Gulf nations. Reports say the Strait of Hormuz blockade hinders some 10million barrels from entering the international market every day. Here in Nigeria, consumer experience worsened at the weekend with Dangote Petroleum Refinery’s review of its gantry price of Premium Motor Spirit (petrol) to N1,275 per litre – the fifth time petrol price was being raised within three weeks. The practical effect for the average Nigerian is that the costs of goods and services – not just of petrol – have been haemorrhaging with inflation. 

The administrations in the US and Israel are plying narratives suggesting they are winning the war in Iran. But it is debatable they are, as Operation Epic Fury turns into Mission Creep. A factor that could force Trump’s hand is the material cost of the war to the US, besides that American consumers too are hurting from inflationary pressures. Reports cited a senior White House official confirming that Washington spent some $12billion on the war in the first two weeks, and there were speculations the administration was committing more than $1billion daily to the operation.

Trump had not bothered to seek congressional approval before embarking on the Iran war, and his allies in the legislature have since blocked moves to rein in his executive power to prosecute the war. But he will have to shortly go cap in hand to Congress to get the money needed to keep running the war appropriated. While he isn’t likely to be turned down by American lawmakers, as that would be tantamount to conceding defeat to Iran even before the war is decided on the battlefield, there will be fresh opportunity for Congress members to impose an endgame on the war.

The world’s hope for enduring respite from the harsh effects of the Iranian war hangs on such intervention. But there must be something our own government can do locally to cushion the ravages of the war meanwhile, isn’t there?