Endgame in Iran?

 When it rains, it pours. Hostilities persisted last week in the war between the United States and Israel on one hand and Iran on the other, despite a shift of deadline by US President Donald Trump for a threatened Armageddon. Bluster ruled the turf on both sides, and you never really know how close to an endpoint the war is. Meanwhile, the international community roiled in the cost of living crisis the war has foisted on global economy.

Israel reported late in the week that it had killed a senior Iranian military figure in targeted air strike. Admiral Alireza Tangsiri was commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) navy and reportedly was the engine room of Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. US Central Command, confirming the killing in a post on X, advised Iranians serving in the IRGC navy to “abandon their post and return home to avoid further risk of unnecessary injury or death.” Washington boasted that Iran had neither a navy left at this point nor a navy leader.

More than 2,000 people have been killed in the war, the greater majority from US-Israeli strikes in Iran. In Israel, no fewer than 15 people have been killed by Iranian strikes. At least 13 US servicemen have also been killed, along with more than a dozen civilians in the occupied West Bank and Gulf Arab states.

Iran has stayed resilient in the war and has managed to fight back against the US-Israel strikes. There were reports last week of Iranian missile and drone attacks against Israel that resulted in Israeli fatalities and damage to Israeli infrastructure. Trump’s threat of crushing strikes came hours after two Iranian missiles struck southern Israel, injuring more than 100 people in the most destructive attack since the war began. Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to retaliate “on all fronts.”

Iranian attacks also persisted against US allies and military bases in the Persian Gulf. Several Gulf nations reported fresh strikes and interceptions, with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) saying its air defences engaged several ballistic missiles and drones launched from Iran. UAE military authorities reported, for instance, that they intercepted 15 Iranian missiles and 11 attack drones last Thursday. One of the interceptions killed two civilians, bringing the overall death toll in Iran’s  retaliatory attacks against America’s Persian Gulf allies to 10.

Oil prices resurged as Trump issued a stern fresh warning for Iranian leaders to agree to a deal to end the war on his terms “before it is too late.” But Iran continued to attack Gulf states and Israel, and still had the Strait of Hormuz in a chokehold despite that Israeli defense authorities had announced that the Iranian naval commander killed in a targeted airstrike was responsible for the blockade. Meanwhile, Trump plied psychological pressure on Iran by sending thousands more US forces to the region as White House officials warned that the president would “unleash hell” on Iran if a deal isn’t reached to end the war.

It was Armageddon deferred on Monday when Trump announced a five-day moratorium on threatened strikes against Iranian power plants. He had over the previous weekend said he would “obliterate” Iran’s power plants unless the country lifts its chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours – a deadline that would have expired late Monday, Washington time. Last Friday, when the pause was to expire, Trump announced another 10-day moratorium on the threatened strikes.

“Trump is stacking American forces in the Gulf and there are speculations he plans to order boots on the ground at some point”

The war, now in its fifth week, has already crossed several thresholds, among them the killing of the top layer of Iran’s leadership corps including former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, bombing of key Iranian gas fields, as well as Iranian strikes targeting oil and gas facilities and other civilian infrastructure in Gulf Arab nations. The conflict has shaken the global economy, sent oil prices escalating and endangered some of the world’s busiest air corridors. The latest threatened attacks could have cut electricity to wide swaths of people in Iran and around the Gulf, and knocked out desalination plants that provide many desert nations with drinking water. There are also concerns about results of strikes on nuclear facilities.

In response, the Iranian leadership vowed retaliation if Trump made good on his threat to attack its critical military infrastructure. It said Iran would hit power plants in all areas that supply electricity to American bases, “as well as the economic, industrial and energy infrastructure in which Americans have shares.” Reports cited a prominent Iranian leader saying his country would consider vital infrastructure across the region to be legitimate targets, including energy and desalination plants crucial for providing drinking water in Gulf nations.

Iran also warned it would completely close the Strait of Hormuz if Trump carried out his threat to bomb Tehran’s power plants. Even after Trump renewed his moratorium at the weekend, the IRGC announced that the Strait of Hormuz was closed and any transit through the waterway would face “harsh measures.” It added that shipping “to and from ports of allies and supporters of the Israeli-American enemies” was prohibited through any corridor or to any destination.

The Islamic republic’s chokehold on Hormuz has wreaked havoc on energy markets, pushed up prices of food and other goods well beyond the Middle-East and sent shock waves throughout the global economy. Nigeria is not immune and citizens are stretched thin by inflationary pressures. 

Shortly before the expiration of his 48-hour ultimatum over the Strait of Hormuz last Monday, Trump announced he was holding off strikes against Iranian power plants for five days following “very good and productive conversations” between his country and Iran. In a post on Truth Social, he also held out the possibility of a negotiated resolution to the war. He later told reporters that Iran wants “to make a deal,” and that US envoys had been holding talks with a “respected” Iranian leader, though not with the new Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei.

Oil prices that were stubbornly high in early trading on Monday plunged after Trump announced his moratorium on threatened strikes.

Iran initially denied that there were negotiations of any kind with the US and said the American leader only backed down following its firm warning of reprisals. “Since the start of the war, messages have been sent to Tehran by some mediators, but Iran’s clear response has been that it will continue its defense until the required level of deterrence is achieved,” a state media outlet quoted a top source saying in Tehran, adding: “With this kind of psychological warfare, neither the Strait of Hormuz will return to pre-war conditions nor will calm return to energy markets.”

Reports later last week cited Iranian officials acknowledging that Tehran had been in receipt of Trump’s 15-point proposal for ending the conflict. The proposal, according to sources, got reviewed in detail by senior Iranian officials, including the supreme leader’s representative, who deemed it one-sided and unacceptable. State media reported that Tehran had rejected the proposal sent from Washington via an intermediary, saying it lacked the “minimum requirements” for success.

So, how will the war end, and for how longer will it rage amidst mutual sabre rattling by the combatants? This question agitates the world, not the least in Nigeria where the war has imposed severe hardships that we wonder why our own government can’t do anything to ameliorate. It was not clear from Trump’s pronouncements how Iran and the US might agree to “a complete and total resolution” to end the conflict, including ensuring re-opening of the Strait of Hormuz and addressing concerns over Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium whose whereabouts are uncertain. The hold-off on threatened strikes against Iran defused tension somewhat in the global oil market, but it also implied a reinforcement of status quo including Iran’s continuing chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz if no amicable deal is urgently struck.

Analysts probed at the weekend whether the renewed pause on attacking Iranian infrastructure was for genuine diplomacy or disguised escalation. Trump is stacking American forces in the Gulf and there are speculations he plans to order boots on the ground at some point, though likely on neighbouring Kharg island rather than on mainland Iran. The moratorium extension may be to buy time for a ground invasion of Iran and allow for further softening of its defences by Israel that has continued its own attacks despite Trump’s pause. But the question of Washington’s endgame remained, now that a war that began with talks of regime change and demilitarising Iran has morphed into a question of who controls a narrow lane of water on which the global economy depends.

Whatever he does, the American leader has effectively torn up the global rulebook of multilateralism under the now supine United Nations (UN) and supplanted it with vicious unilateralism.