Voice of Emancipation: No End in Sight to the US/Iran War

By Kayode Emola

Two weeks on from the conflict between the US & Iran and there is no end in sight. Many analysts are asking what the real cause of the fighting was and what is the US government hoping to achieve. Till date, the White House has not come up with a coherent reason as to why they went into the war other than they thought the Iranian regime was going to strike first.

The fact of the matter is that the US government went into this war with their eyes closed and when their eyes were opened, the world was already in chaos. A chaos that everyone, no matter where you are on this planet is going to partake in. So, all we need to do is to brace ourselves for the challenges that will follow in the coming days, weeks and months that will follow.

As it stands, President Trump is in a bind and has limited options on how to manoeuvrer the situation. He is hoping that the Iranian regime will capitulate and plead for clemency but that is never going to happen. The Iranians saw the weakness in the US plan from the beginning, and they exploited it big time.

They knew the US was going to finish them off militarily on an open combat, so they weren’t going to even try to confront the US on the battle ground. Rather, they resulted to an asymmetric warfare where Us interests were the targets.

They were prepared to hit the US where it matters most and that is on the economic front. Had the US opened their eyes to calculate the risks before venturing into the war, they would have been better prepared to deal with the fallout from the Iranian resistance.

The world we live in has experienced a lot of shocks in recent times which it is still recovering from. Not least the recent covid-19 pandemic that put many nations in dire financial constraint. On top of that, we had the Russian/Ukraine war that stretched the finances of many families all round the globe. Yet again the world is plunged into a war between the US and Iran, one which no analyst can say precisely when it would end.

From all indication, it seems as though there will be more pain before we begin to turn a corner. The Iranian economy has already taken a big hit from the many years of sanctions and may or may not be prepared for what is to come. The rest of us who do not know what it means to live inside austerity for many years like the Iranians have endured will have a taste of what it means to have your food being rationed if the war doesn’t end soon.

Either way, there are some few pointers as to the direction of travel for this ongoing conflict. The first is that the war has gone so bad for the US that President Trump has lifted sanctions on Russian oil on a whim. That is a big win for President Putin who has endured selling his crude oil at a cheap to India for over 4 years. Instead of the $20 mark he was collecting for a barrel, he can now charge over $100/barrel.

The next is that no amount of oil pumped out by Russia can make up for the over 25 million barrels of oil per day that was previously being pumped into the international market by the Gulf States. This means that if the war doesn’t end anytime soon, then the world would be in for a serious economic shock due to the shortage of energy readily available for distribution.

This brings me to the Yoruba question of independence from Nigeria. We have seen that the Nigerian security agencies are helpless in the face of terrorism confronting the country. Everyday we hear of terror attacks on our military infrastructure with no decisive response from the security agency. This can only mean one thing, that the Nigerian military do not have the wherewithal to confront these attacks.

It then goes to show that the security of our communities cannot be trusted to a Nigerian state that is lying to its people about the state of its defence capabilities. Our Yoruba people must as a matter of urgency begin to build resilience in our defence capabilities to confront the Fulani jihadist who believe that once they overpower the Nigerian army, they can overrun the country as they see fit.

We as Yoruba must learn from the Iranian regime that did not just capitulate in the face of a great adversary. Rather they confronted the Americans and its allies with the little strength that they have, and it seems to be keeping them going for now.

Whether the Iranians will surrender as President Trump has demanded remained to be seen. However, the pain that is spreading because of the conflict will be felt by everyone around the world. With Russia now actively playing the role of a mediator between the US and what is left of the Iranian government, one can only hope that diplomacy is given a chance to succeed for the sake of humanity.

If not, we might get to a point where either side will result to the use of a nuclear weapon in resolving the impasse. One that will have a devastating consequence for the entire world for a long time to come. My advice for those who are able at this juncture will be for people to stock up on supplies and be ready to ride this out for the long run and not just hope that the conflict comes to an end soon.