USA GETTING MORE THAN IT BARGAINED FOR IN THE WAR WITH IRAN
Highlights:
United States and Israel start a war with Iran in the Middle East
Iranian counter-strikes target Israel and US assets in the Gulf Arab states
Saudi Arabian political analyst expresses anger at USA for prioritizing defence of Israel over the Gulf Arab states that host US military bases
Shia Muslims in Nigeria, Iraq, Pakistan and India protest Ayatollah Khamenei’s assassination
It is a consistent habit of US government to underestimate its adversaries, and then express shock at their ability to strike back.
Trump and his delusional subordinates had expected the Iranians to strike Tel Aviv and perhaps carry out a throwaway token attack on a US base in Qatar before returning for negotiations.
There was also an expectation that the assassination of Ayatollah Khamenei in his well-known residence would disorientate the Iranians. None of that happened. Instead, the Iranians acted on their pre-war threats and attacked US military bases (plus hotels hosting US troops) across the Gulf Arab states. Israel is also taking a massive beating from Iranian drones and missiles.
In my humble opinion, the Iranian strategy for this current conflict is to cripple US military bases across the Middle East and prompt the Gulf Arab states to start perceiving the presence of American troops on their soil as a liability rather than an asset. Hopefully, this would generate enough resentment to prompt the Arab states to request the withdrawal of American troops.
Three days into the war, there are already indications of the aforementioned resentment. A Saudi Arabian political analyst appeared on Al Jazeera TV to state that the Gulf Arab countries feel abandoned by the Trump Administration, which has prioritized the defense of Israel. Meagre US Air Defence Systems in the Middle East—such as MIM-104 Patriot and THAAD— are being used primarily to help Israel combat Iranian missiles.
Meanwhile, government officials in Bahrain and UAE—two Gulf Arab states adjacent Iran— have been reduced to watching helplessly as buzzing Iranian drones fly into their territories unopposed and crash into targets.
Here is a video of the Saudi analyst speaking :
I am willing to wager that Donald Trump had no idea that Ayatollah Khamenei was not only just Iran’s de facto Head of State, but also the revered spiritual leader of millions of Shia Muslims globally.
The assassination of the spiritual leader has been reverberating far beyond the geographic boundaries of Iran. In faraway Nigeria, thousands of Shia Muslims held rallies to mourn and protest the murder of Ayatollah Khamenei. Most of the demonstrations have been peaceful as shown in the video clip:
Nigeria has about 115 million Muslims. 92% of them are Sunnis while Shia and Ahmadiyya minorities constitute the remaining 5% and 3% respectively. Many Nigerian Sunnis do not view their Shia and Ahmadiyya counterparts as “real Muslims” and often treat them with hostility.
Most Shia minorities reside in the predominantly Muslim Northwestern states, where they encounter repression and violence that has led to several protests by the Iranian government over the decades.
Beyond official diplomatic protests, emissaries of Ayatollah Khamenei have travelled to the federal city of Abuja to remonstrate with the Nigerian government regarding recurring violence against the Shia community, often perpetrated by Sunni extremist groups and Northern state authorities, and occasionally, federally-controlled security services, which view Nigerian Shias as Iran’s agents of influence.
Of course, the notion that Nigeria’s indigenous Shia community are agents of Iran is as absurd as asserting that Nigerian Catholics (including myself) are agents of the Vatican.
Outside Nigeria, the protests over the assassination of Ayatollah Khamenei have been mostly violent. In Pakistan, several protesters were killed as they attempted to invade the US Consulate in the cosmopolitan city of Karachi. Violence arising from protests elsewhere in Pakistan left 10 people dead in Gilgit-Baltistan and two dead in the national capital, Islamabad.
In Iraq, protesters in Baghdad attempted to enter the Green Zone hosting the gigantic US Embassy, which covers an area almost equal in size to the Vatican City State. Several Iraqi protesters trying to reach that American diplomatic complex were shot to death for their efforts.
Indian-controlled Kashmir also experienced clashes between the local police and thousands of Shia Muslims protesting the assassination of Ayatollah Khamenei.
As I post this article, I am listening to an Iranian general stating that his country would target British military bases in Cyprus because the Americans have moved their fighter jets from the Gulf Arab states to the nearby Mediterranean European country.
The world has never been more unsafe than this moment.
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