A battle of nerves

The Gulf region is witnessing a battle of nerves. With assaults, tanker hijackings, threats to navigation and drone attacks, it is difficult to keep calm in such a tense situation. Tensions have soared since US President Donald Trump unilaterally abandoned last year a landmark 2015 nuclear deal Iran signed with world powers, aimed at curbing its nuclear programme, hitting Teheran with crippling sanctions that it calls "economic terrorism." The US has blamed Iran for a series of attacks since mid-May on shipping around the Strait of Hormuz, the world's most important oil artery, accusations Teheran has vehemently denied.

Iran's Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani suspects the US to be behind the attacks. "The suspicious actions against tankers…seem to complement the economic sanctions against Iran, considering that [the US] has not achieved any results from them." Britain is the only Western US ally that has endorsed the Trump Administration's claim that Iran is responsible for recent attacks on tankers in the Gulf. Otherwise, disbelief has been expressed by numerous governments and Middle East watchers. The US assertion that Iran has been behind the attacks on tankers such as Norwegian and Japanese is being viewed with considerable scepticism.

Many Middle East watchers think that the Trump administration is following the footsteps of the George W. Bush regime (2001-2009) which invaded and occupied Iraq on the basis of "intelligence" that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, a claim that turned out to be far from the truth. Even Russia has compared the Trump administration's allegations against Iran with former US Secretary of State Colin Powell's accusation that Iraq was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction, including deadly anthrax, in the run-up to Bush's war on Iraq, an allegation that was not true at all.

Norway's Frontline, operator of the Front Altair tanker, has said that a torpedo may have struck the ship chartered by Taiwan's oil refinery to transport a cargo of naphtha, a flammable petrochemical product, to East Asia. The ship is now at the port as investigators verify the cause and identify the perpetrators.

It is also difficult to believe that Iran was responsible for the attack on the Japanese tanker. Why would Iran strike the Japanese ship on the very day the country's PM Shinzo Abe was set to visit Teheran on a mission to reduce tensions between the US and Iran? This was the first time a Japanese PM visited Iran since the 1979 revolution.

Trump has been using threats and adopting coercive policies since taking over as US president. He has issued military threats against Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela and has used economic threats through tariffs against a host of countries including the European Union, China, Russia, Mexico, Canada, and India.

India is also caught in the stand-off with 42 of its nationals being held by Britain and Iran after seizing each other's tankers. The UK seized an Iranian tanker off the coast of Gibraltar, a British Overseas Territory, earlier this month. Weeks later, Iran responded by seizing a UK-flagged tanker passing through the Strait of Hormuz. Both tankers had Indian crew on board.

One should not forget that the US 2003 war against Iraq was an unmitigated disaster. Instead of heralding democracy, good governance, and stability in the region, as promised by the US, the invasion and occupation of Iraq have been the main destabilising factor in the region over the last 16 years. Security and political vacuum have been created in Iraq after the US action led to the ouster of Saddam Husain as well as the Baath Party and, demolition of the Iraqi army. The vacuum allowed Al Qaeda to obtain a foothold in the country. If it had not happened, perhaps, there would not have been Daesh or similar radical factions that are now threatening countries across the globe.

As of now, the prospect of negotiations to defuse the standoff appears more distant than ever. The US has dismissed a nuclear offer proposed by Iran's foreign minister Javad Zarif during a visit to New York recently. Zarif proposed that Iran's parliament immediately ratify acceptance of a permanent regime of intrusive international inspections, known as the Additional Protocol, designed to ensure that Iran was not building nuclear weapons covertly.

Iran is currently observing the protocol under the terms of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreed under the nuclear deal, annulled by Trump, and was due to ratify it, cementing it into law in October 2023. Zarif offered to bring that arrangement forward by more than four years in return for immediate sanctions relief.

Another war in the Gulf is not in anybody's interests even though hawks in the Trump administration are talking about it and are encouraged to do so by regional rivals of Iran and Israel. The only country that may be benefitted from war is Iran's archrival in the region Israel, which has been favouring such action. The US and its allies in the region, notably Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, must handle the crisis in a mature manner. Any misadventure or miscalculation by either side would be disastrous.

It is equally important for Iran to act in a mature manner and not do anything that could precipitate the situation further. It is also necessary for the international community, specially the UN, NATO, and the European Union to ensure a resolution of the crisis before it gets out of hand.

If the crisis persists, there are also possibilities of major powers like Russia and China, which have their own calculations, getting involved for their own aims. Russia has many differences with the West and wants to restore the superpower influence of the erstwhile Soviet Union era. China has its own issues with the US in East China and South China Seas, as well as their trade disputes. In the event of a prolonged crisis, there is a possibility of these countries getting involved too.

(The author is a former Editor of PTI and served as West Asia correspondent for PTI, based in Bahrain from 1988 to 1995. The views expressed are strictly personal)