A Ceasefire Band Aid for the Middle East

Authoritarians need emergencies to retain and or expand their control

Writing an analysis of the Iran-Israel war is a challenge because so much of what we think we know may be based on or obscuring something we don’t know. My detailed accounting of what actually happened over the weekend must be cast aside as yet another unexpected development occurs.

The purported ceasefire announced on social media was obviously made before attention was paid to the belligerent actions of the combatants already in progress. It’s anybody’s guess how long or if it will hold.

The one thing that can be truthfully asserted is the drive of President Trump to assert his ego into the conflict. A cessation of hostilities is what is being promised, even though the underlying causes have been only temporarily set aside.

The promise of a Nobel Peace prize and the enablement of the buffoonery soon to come on the world stage is what peace means to Trump.

I sincerely hope that no more war is in order, for the sake of the people who won’t get killed and the hatred that won’t be forthcoming. However, given the nature of all the political leaders involved, chances of continuing conflict remain high. Authoritarians need emergencies to retain and or expand their control.

For the US, the military industrial complex has fed itself on the teat of Israel for too long. And, as both the B2 bombing and the ceasefire announcement show, we have a President who can’t be bothered with the details as long as he gets the credit.

Trump has damaged a lot of things in the American ethos and culture. But the most damaging is making hate, rudeness, crassness, mocking disabled people, harassing people of color, and lying normal. His newly (self) enhanced status may well become the lever for making the rest of his dark vision a reality.

For Iran, whose people would love to be freed from the current theocracy, the issue of national pride is at stake. The most recent military assaults have strengthened the hands of hardliners in government. An enfeebled Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has already transferred some powers to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, soon to be led by the (younger) survivors of the Israeli targeting of senior leaders.

There is the chance that Iran takes final steps following these attacks to actually build a nuclear weapon or dirty conventional explosives capable of dispersing radioactive particles. Regardless, it’s a good bet that the materials and expertise surviving the US and Israeli attacks will be a problem in the future. Iran’s relationships with China and Russia will ensure the role the country has played in keeping Sunni-run nations on edge.

For Israel, three words: Gaza, Gaza, Gaza. In their quest to rule over the Palestinians, the Netanyahu government has taken their nation’s national identity to a most dangerous place–becoming a mirror of what they started out opposing. It has become part of the authoritarian anti-democratic movement currently on the ascent in advanced industrial countries.

The question of a two-state solution is settled; it will never happen, especially as other regimes in the neighborhood have become reliant on wealth as the ultimate arbiter of status and power. Deprived of property, any semblance of political power, and all-too-often despised by their would-be defenders, the Palestinians are toast. For now.

The memories and realities of the repression they will suffer as a subjugated people are the seeds of hostilities yet to come. Israel cannot/will not offer Palestinians a path out of despair and into hope, so the future is bleak.

Is the world a safer place? Nah. And I do think that non-state actors will be eager to pull off the terror attack that shatters the current political order.