Few politicians do frustration quite like Donald Trump. During a telephone interview with CNBC on June 1, the US President said drawn-out peace talks with Iran had “started to get very boring”. “I really don’t care,” an exasperated Mr Trump added. “I couldn’t care less.”
Having gone through more than 100 days of on-off war, many in the Middle East will share the US leader’s visible irritation over a senseless dangerous and disruptive conflict that shows little sign of stopping. Unlike Mr Trump however, ordinary people across the region do not have the privilege of being able to declare that they “don’t care”. It is their lives and futures that are on the line.
A week of tit-for-tat strikes across the Gulf, as well as more Iranian attacks on Jordan and the deaths of three Indian seafarers in a US strike on their vessel off the Oman coast, highlight how the ceasefire between Washington and Tehran is in serious danger of collapsing.
This is a war that most want to see end. The UN, the GCC, the EU and dozens of individual countries have repeatedly highlighted the dangers of escalation and made it clear that a negotiated peace is vital. Oil markets and stock exchanges the world over also seek a return to normality, especially given the global energy and economic crisis that is taking shape.
Despite this widespread desire for peace, the leaderships of Israel and Iran, two highly militarised states that seek to dominate their neighbours through force, seem to have an interest in keeping attacks going.
The Israeli government's determination to solve its problems through violence was on show this week. On Monday, Mr Trump urged Iran and Israel to “stop shooting”. A day later, Israeli forces struck the Lebanese city of Tyre, killing at least nine people and injuring 28. Later, Israel issued a forced displacement order including, for the first time, Tyre’s Christian quarter, sparking panic among thousands of families there.
A bellicose Israel – whose hard-right leadership is now in election mode – is one challenge to the region, while a weakened but aggressive Iran dominated by the militarists of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is another. Their response to US strikes on military sites this week was to again lash out at Kuwait, Bahrain and Jordan in an attempt to sow chaos in the Arab world.
The Middle East and the global economy are affected by two sets of hardliners. Extremists among the Israeli government and the Tehran regime dominated by the IRGC remain committed to undermining their neighbours without clear political resolutions on the horizon.
