On 3rd January, 2020 at around 1 a.m. (Iraq local time) The U.S President Donald Trump ordered the air strike which killed 10 military personnel in Baghdad International Airport. Among the casualties were prominent figures like Iran’s Major General Qasem Soleimani of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Deputy Commander of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.
The Pentagon - the U.S Department of Defence held Soleimani and his Quds Force
responsible for the recent attacks on the K-1 Air Base in Iraq and the assault on the U.S embassy in the Green Zone. The air strike was thus a retaliation to these actions. It also stated that Soleimani fuelled the Iran-led proxy wars across the middle-east and it was necessary to stop this. Also, Donald Trump justified his order by claiming that Soleimani was an evildoer who had the blood of thousands of Americans on his hand and was a threat to the U.S and other countries. He stated that his action was taken to stop a war and not to start one.
The killing of General Soleimani generated vivid reactions along the U.S. party lines, with the republicans praising Trump on his bold action and the Democrats expressing concerns about the consequences of the strike. The Islamic republic of Iran on the
other hand vows revenge. Thousands of protestors took the streets chanting “Death to America” and “Revenge, Revenge, Revenge”. They burned down the U.S. flag
an have hoisted a red flag as a sign of declaration of war.
Tens of thousands of mourners rallied through the Mollavi Square and Mashhad in Iran, holding up portraits of Soleimani as he was a hero-figurine among the people for his role in the Iran-Iraq wars and his contributions in diminishing the influence of ISIS. Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei declared three days of nation-wide mourning for Soleimani’s demise. Soon after the demise period elapsed, 3 missiles were deployed in the Green Zone in Baghdad containing U.S. troops on 5th January and it looked like the beginning of a new war.
Iraq’s Prime Minister Abel Abdul Mahdi also condemned the assassination of their militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. He stated that the air strike was an act of aggression on Iraq and breached its sovereignty. Also, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said that the only punishment was to destroy the U.S. military presence in the region. The international law administered by the United Nations has put the U.S. president in a stranglehold. The law condemns this act as it “violates international human rights law”,
Agnes Callamard, a Rapporteur at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said. She also stated that an individual’s past involvement in terrorism does not make his killing lawful. The UN Charter also prohibits the use of force against other countries without its approval and as the Government of Iraq did no permit such an attack, many legal experts believe that the air strike was unlawful.
While under the U.S. law, the legality of the strike is debatable. Article 2 of the U.S. constitution provides the president constitutional authority as commander-in-chief and precedents set by past U.S. presidents builds a strong case for Donald Trump.
However, the democrats claim that such a strike should have been executed with congressional approval.
The assassination of Soleimani is the most significant escalation in tensions between Washington and Tehran in recent times which started in 2018 when Trump unilaterally pulled out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). It is expected that Iran will retaliate once the mourning period is over but Trump threatens that 52 Iranian sites will be hit “very fast and very hard” if Iran retaliated by attacking US citizens or assets. Desirous of de-escalating the tensions in the middle east, he has stationed his military personnel in Iraq and Kuwait. When he encountered resistance, he threatened to impose sanctions exponential than Iran’s. Iraq has thus deterred from making any public protests as it would upset the U.S.
The U.S. has approximately spent $6.4 trillion on wars post the 9/11 attack and would
continue to spend if the tensions escalate. But with a crippling economy, it is uncertain how far Iran is willing to go in order to avenge the death of their top general. Financial Chief Investment Analyst John Lynch has explained that the U.S economic fundamentals or the corporate profits are unlikely to be effected on a large scale due to such escalations as the stocks have encountered heightened geopolitical tensions in the past and has survived through it. The “war puzzle” which has been witnessed by the analysts in the past predict that the stock prices rise after an outbreak of a war without any clear explanation. Thus, if a war were
to happen, the stock market of the U.S is likely to rise rather than fall.
The effects of the air strike have not been confined to the countries and their people alone. Global oil prices shot up by 4% to about $69.16 per barrel and pushed up oil stocks like Royal Dutch Shell on the London Stock Exchange. Even the arms company stocks like Lockheed Martin rose in the light of the event. Also, the U.S. embassy in Baghdad urged the Americans there to leave Iraq immediately Australia and Britain issued similar warnings to their nationals in Iraq citing security reasons.
The war between The U.S. and Iran can emerge as various proxy wars in the middle east and the world ‘cannot’ afford another Gulf war. The recent airstrike has escalated the tension between the two nations to its highest peak and all the countries like Germany, France, Britain and even the UN have called for maximum restraint by the nations.
By 8th January, Iran had launched a dozen ballistic missiles at 2 Iraqi bases which housed the U.S troops but no casualties were reported. However, the IRGC commander, Hossein Salami told the parliament that their aim was not to kill the enemy soldiers rather to prove the point that they were superior than their enemies and could hit any point they chose.
The ball was now in the court of the U.S to respond to this retaliation. But on 12th January Pentagon stated that it did not expect any more Iranian retaliatory attacks. Instead of standing together with their military commanders, the local ‘Iranians aspired for a better government –a different regime’, Pentagon stated. What happened that completely changed the scenario?
On the latter half of 8th January, a Ukrainian International Airlines Flight 752 which carried 176 passengers from Tehran to Kiev was downed by the IRGC attributing it as a ‘human error’. The IRGC’s top commanders took full responsibility for the act and
mourned for the victims of the attack along with the Iranians. However, protests erupted across Iran pressuring the leaders to flee the country as they believed that ‘their enemy was not in America, rather it was right there in Iran’. This was also because more than 50% of the passengers were Iranians.
Iranian generals tried to play the blame game by re-directing the blame to the U.S stating that it was a human error due to the heightened tensions between the nations. But the Iranians stood with the victims and Donald Trump commented that he was inspired by the courage of the long-suffering, brave Iranian protestors. Thus, a war which was at the horizon is probably averted due to a ‘human error’.
WRITTEN BY:
Gautam Rathi
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