America’s overnight strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities have not only raised the stakes in this crisis to another level – they have injected yet more uncertainty into international efforts to find a way out of this escalating conflict.
On Friday, US President Donald Trump said Tehran had a maximum of two weeks to "see whether or not people come to their senses". The same day, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met European counterparts in Geneva for talks. Many in this region and further afield hoped that direct US involvement would be stopped, or at least deferred, allowing time to find a diplomatic off-ramp. As it turned out, “two weeks” meant two days.
The highest priority now, particularly for countries in the Middle East, is finding a way to halt a growing war that has no clearly defined goals and threatens to lead to years of further instability. This paper has consistently called for de-escalation and talks. However, these are processes that require time and trust. The US strikes have delivered a blow to both, while the Iranian government failed to act seriously towards a long-lasting solution.
Tehran’s decades-long meddling in the Arab world has been a persistent threat to regional peace. Given the leadership’s “death to America, death to Israel” rhetoric, Iran’s nuclear programme was always going to be viewed with suspicion, especially as its enrichment went beyond what is required for a civilian programme. But what effect will America’s strikes have and what cost will the region pay?
The answers to those questions are not known, but certainly de-escalation is the best move forward. There is reason to believe that Mr Trump’s decision to hit Iranian targets has been informed by his previous experience with unilateral strikes. In April 2017, the US dropped the largest non-nuclear bomb in its arsenal on an underground ISIS base in Afghanistan. The same month, the US Navy launched almost 60 Tomahawk missiles at an air base controlled by the Syrian government, following a chemical weapons attack on a town in Idlib province. Almost three years later the US struck again, this time in Baghdad, assassinating Iranian commander Qassem Suleimani in a targeted drone strike. In the cases of Afghanistan and Syria, war continued in spite of these displays of American force. The killing of Suleimani was a significant loss for Tehran, but it was still able to make its presence felt across the Middle East.
Direct strikes on Iranian territory are quantifiably different. Although there are few initial reports about the extent of the damage to Tehran’s nuclear capabilities, some form of retaliation is to be expected and this morning there have been more missile strikes on Israeli targets. Even if the Iranian government’s instinct for self-preservation precludes strikes on US assets in the region, the threat of terrorism, cyberwarfare or violence from Tehran’s remaining regional proxies has significantly increased.
So-called pre-emptive strikes make meaningful diplomacy difficult. The uncertainty they introduce into international engagement risks fuelling the very conflict that Mr Trump and Israel claim they are heading off by striking first.
Despite the bleak picture emerging this morning, a way must be found. There has to be a redoubling of efforts to convince American, Iranian and Israeli leaderships to find a way towards peace. Although wars are easy to start, they are more difficult to end. This is not the time for lip-service or talks for the sake of talks. To avert regional disaster, cooler heads must prevail and diplomatic efforts must be sincere.
